I am thinking about this way too hard...
Sep. 18th, 2012 10:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
awanderingbardSo I taped Wallander on Sunday night, so I could watch it when it wasn't late at night because Wallander is a show you need to watch with sunshine and flowers and holding a puppy because it's so depressing.
Anyway, I watched it tonight and the episode is called 'The Dogs of Riga' and it takes place, unsurprisingly, in Riga, which is in Latvia. Wallander itself is set in Sweden, but it's a British show, with British actors using British accents. The background stuff, like words on a computer screen and signs are in Swedish, though, so the implication is that all these British people are speaking Swedish and you're just hearing it as English. Which is fine, I hate when people speak English with accents and pretend like it's another language.
But, when Wallander the character goes to Riga, the Latvian characters speak English with a Latvian accent. And everyone there speaks English with a Latvian accent, but also large sections are in actual Latvian, with Wallander looking confused. And at one point, a character asks him in English if he's German, so presumably when the Latvians are speaking English, they are not under the same pretense as English=Swedish. Because then the character would know he was Swedish because they would be speaking Swedish.
So are we supposed to believe that Wallander can conveniently speak fluent, flawless Latvian? Or are they speaking some third unknown language? It is quite ridiculous how much this bothers me. Explain this, show!
Anyway, I watched it tonight and the episode is called 'The Dogs of Riga' and it takes place, unsurprisingly, in Riga, which is in Latvia. Wallander itself is set in Sweden, but it's a British show, with British actors using British accents. The background stuff, like words on a computer screen and signs are in Swedish, though, so the implication is that all these British people are speaking Swedish and you're just hearing it as English. Which is fine, I hate when people speak English with accents and pretend like it's another language.
But, when Wallander the character goes to Riga, the Latvian characters speak English with a Latvian accent. And everyone there speaks English with a Latvian accent, but also large sections are in actual Latvian, with Wallander looking confused. And at one point, a character asks him in English if he's German, so presumably when the Latvians are speaking English, they are not under the same pretense as English=Swedish. Because then the character would know he was Swedish because they would be speaking Swedish.
So are we supposed to believe that Wallander can conveniently speak fluent, flawless Latvian? Or are they speaking some third unknown language? It is quite ridiculous how much this bothers me. Explain this, show!
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Date: 2012-09-23 06:45 am (UTC)i think that's an ep I haven't seen. (on the rare times PBS shows Wallander, its only the same ones they've already shown)