ON the evening of Friday, January 26, I went to see the film Beyond the Clouds directed by Michelangelo Antonioni at the Hong Kong Arts Centre Shouson Theatre.
According to Artslinks, the monthly bulletin published by the Arts Centre, the film was in Italian and French with both Chinese and English subtitles.
However, just before we entered the theatre, we were told that the film had only English subtitles, but we could ask for a refund if we wished to. We decided it would still be worth seeing the film.
However, in retrospect, we probably should have asked for a refund, because throughout the whole film, the subtitles either could not catch up with the dialogue, or disappeared from the screen so quickly you could not read all the words in the the sentences. Luckily because I had studied French for four years, I could just about keep up with the French dialogue. But I had no idea at all when it came to the Italian dialogue, with its swiftly disappearing English subtitles.
I hope that the Arts Centre management will check out the subtitles carefully before releasing the films in the future.
VERA YUEN Kowloon