Dub Ya

At lunch today I was greeted with a nice surprise. My favorite lunch spot, Maendeleo Cafe ("Development" cafe), was playing a magnificent movie for everyone to watch as we ate. The movie..? "Cobra" with Sylvester Stallone. Has anyone else (besides Lance) ever heard of this movie? Or am I just not in the know about old Sly films? No, that can't be true. I've seen both "Over the Top" and "Rhinestone", both classics in the truest sense of the word. If any of you have not seen "Rhinestone", tonight is the night to treat yourself, if only to see how many awesome shirts Sly wears in that movie.

The noteworthy aspect to this showing of Cobra was the Swahili dubbing. When most people think of dubbing they think of old kung-fu movies where the main bad guy has a voice like a frog, and that voice and his lips move together only nominally. Swahili dubbing is a whole different ballgame. There is only one man who dubs the entire film. He doesn't translate what people say though, instead he simply gives a very soccer-like play by play of what the people are seeing. His voice even gets all excited during the action scenes, just like the announcer who gets pumped when there's a shot on goal. It's great. I tried listening to what the announcer was saying, and here is a rough translation of the first part of the movie:

"People are at a store, buying watermelons. Oh no, there is a bad man. He has a gun. Look he shot a watermelon! People are scared and want to run. He scares them with the gun. The police come, in their cars. They speak at the evil man, he shoots his gun at them! A new car, very nice, arrives. Cobra gets out of the nice car. He is wearing sunglasses. Cobra goes to the policemen. Now they are talking. Cobra goes into the store, he has a gun also. Cobra hides himself in the cans of beans. The evil man cannot see Cobra. Cobra sees the evil man. Cobra runs to the evil man, but they see each other first. Cobra and the evil man do point their guns at each other! Cobra is not scared. Cobra talks at the evil man, and now the evil man is more angry than before he was angry. The evil man yells!! Cobra throws a knife into the evil man's chest! But the evil man is not dead. He is wanting to kill Cobra now. Cobra shoots the evil man with his gun! Now the evil man is dead!! Cobra!!!!"

The best part is that anyone with eyes has seen all of this occur roughly two seconds before the announcer mentions it. I think the way that Tanzanians dub is to get drunk, watch a movie while a microphone is nearby, and talk about what they just saw. I feel like watching a movie with a commentator making sure you know that Cobra is wearing sunglasses only improves the experience. He yelled "Cobra!!" like the guy who yells "Gooaaaaalllll!" It was amazing.