I was reminded of Alain de Botton’s book, How Proust Can Change Your Life whilst watching THE TRANSLATORS, a whodunnit based in the cut-throat world of publishing.
Proust, or at least a copy of his book, literally saves someone’s life in the film.
THE TRANSLATORS plot, or should that be narrative, riffs on the Agatha Christie formula of multiple suspects each with possible motive to commit a crime.
The suspects are all translators, brought together to work simultaneously on the final instalment of a global best seller. Security is paramount as leaking of the manuscript could cost the publisher millions.
It’s a hi tech locked room mystery, that has so many narrative layers it becomes a literary lasagne, so many plot twists it resembles a literary pretzel.
When it comes to murder and blackmail, extortion and embezzlement, nothing is lost in translation, and director Regis Roinsard renders that which is due to Christie and that which is due to Hitchcock with considerable panache and elan, complete with a marvellous MacGuffin.
An international cast has been assembled to represent the cream of pan linguists, including Olga Kurylenko, Riccardo Scamarcio, Sidsw Babett Knudsen, Eduardo Noriega, Alex Lawther, Anna-Maria Sturm, Frederic Chau, Maria Leite, Manolis Mavromatakis, and Sara Giraudeau – a towering Babel of increasingly rebel babble.
The publisher is played with sophisticated sinister suavity by Lambert Wilson in a performance that could well be a calling card to play a debonair and deadly Bond villain.
The absolute cherry on the top of THE TRANSLATORS is the bluesy jazz score by Jun Miyake, one of the best soundtracks of the year.
An intricate picture puzzle, a mystery maze, THE TRANSLATORS is worth getting lost in.
