Traduttore, traditore: Translator, traitor – this ingenious consonance that seems to have originated from angry Italians who believed that many French translations of Dante betrayed either the beauty or the accuracy of the poet’s work is gaining new meanings in ‘Les traducteurs’, the film from 2019 directed by Régis Roinsard (who is also co-author of the screenplay). It is a thriller of the kind that Agatha Christie would probably have written if she had lived in the 21st century. We find in it the formula of the closed enclosure where a finite number of characters are forced to live together in a space were crimes will sooner or later be committed and corpses will appear. All or almost all of those present are potential suspects. The surprises follow one another at a fast pace and the events are being told from the points of view of the various characters, which makes us, the spectators, to permanently change our perspectives on what we see. Unlike other films of the genre, even some of those that were based on Agatha Christie’s novels, events are very dynamic until the last scene and the outcome does not disappoint. In a way, I can say that I liked the script more than the execution of the film.
‘Les traducteurs‘ is also a film created with love for books and for those who try to migrate them through translations from one language to another. The heroes of the film are a group of 9 translators from 9 different countries who are hired by the head of a large publishing house (Lambert Wilson) to translate the 3rd and last volume of a highly successful trilogy written by a French writer whose identity is being kept secret. Working conditions, if we can call them so, are also special. To keep the text of the book secret, the 9 are brought together in a castle in luxury prison conditions – caviar and champagne on the one hand, armed guards and all links to the world cut off on the other. Rigorous security does not prevent the first ten pages of the volume from being published on the Internet, with the threat that if a huge amount of money is not paid, the rest of the chapters will be gradually made public. From here begins a series of events that include attempts by all means to discover the source of text leak and of the blackmail, but also to reveal the real personality of the mysterious writer.
The passion for literature and the critique of the publishing and book promotion system, the police intrigue and the action film meet on screen in ‘Les traducteurs‘. It is a combination of great potential that has only been partially fulfilled. I believe that the main problem was the too sketchy definition of most of the characters. It is important in such a film, with a finite number of characters, that each of them has enough time to reveal a personality of her or his own to the viewers and to occupy a distinct place in the action. This is not the case with most of the heroes in ‘Les traducteurs‘.. Fortunately, other important rules of the genre are strictly followed, the action happens at a fast pace, with surprises and changes of perspective until the last moment, using flashbacks intelligently and timely. ‘Les traducteurs‘ could have been one of the beautiful surprises of the film season, even a big success. The film’s path on screens was disrupted by the pandemic, but if the success was not complete, it was not only the pandemic that was to blame. Even so, this is one of the movies that look different in this odd season, a nice and interesting escapist entertainment at a time when we need such films.