David Lida

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At the movies

hijo-de

When films from the U.S. are shown in Mexico, exhibitors not only translate but frequently change the titles. In the Mexican adaptations, certain heated words are almost always utilized -- among them death, murder, fatal, mortal, passion, desire, secret, terror, horror and so on. My ex-wife, who used to write movie criticism for the newspaper La Jornada, once marveled in print that they had not retitled Hamlet as My Son is an Incestuous Killer. Once in a while, however, the Mexican title is better than the original. Oliver Stone’s film about George W. Bush, W., has just opened here, and they’ve called it Hijo de … Bush. For those who don’t understand Spanish, that would be translated as Son of a … Bush.