From a practical perspective, "The Visitors"
manages to fit almost all of the most current as well as quite a few of the
most archaic profanities into a time span of less than two hours. On the other hand, it's important to remember
that like many ancient languages, the profanities in French have lost a good
deal of their literal interpretation.
For an American watching Les
Visiteurs with English subtitling, however, consider yourself warned. The movie itself is an entertaining romp that
sees a 13th-century Norman and his squire teleported to the future, where they
meet their descendants and attempt to find a way back to their own era. Along the way, you can view some very
typically French moments that evoke the French revolution, the feudal system,
the modern French elite, and much more while showing the strength and
weaknesses of French culture through the ages in a very situationally comedic
fashion.
Just the premise of this movie sounds very promising. We'll have to watch it next time we visit!
ReplyDeleteI'm ignorant of language history, and when you referred to French as an ancient language, I had a bit of a internet rabbit hole experience. VERY interesting stuff on early Latin derivatives. Had no idea French and Spanish were so old!