9 Comments

  1. Unknown's avatar

    I was not familiar with this film. Wikipedia calls it a “3D computer-animated musical comedy science fantasy adventure film” which might be some kind of record.

    That’s Sean Lennon as the “monster”, apparently.

  2. Unknown's avatar

    This sounded familiar but I’ve only heard the French version by Vanessa Paradis.

  3. Unknown's avatar

    Oh, and it should be ‘La Seine and me’, not ‘La Seine and I’ (in French: ‘La Seine et moi’) :p .

  4. Unknown's avatar

    I enjoyed both versions, and had never heard of the film either. Now I have to wonder how close the lyrical intent is between the two.

  5. Unknown's avatar

    @Grawlix: I read an essay on the translation challenges for this film. The English lyrics to this song in particular remove several double meanings from the French lyrics. The first line, for example, in French is a double-reference to both the Seine flooding and to a confident woman; the English line ignores the first meaning. Also, the second verse in French switches the subject from “La Seine” to “la scène” (English: “the stage”), a bit of linguistic legerdemain that is impossible to translate; the English version just keeps talking about the river.

  6. Unknown's avatar

    Very interesting, Powers.

    And I should note this is such a catchy song it’s suddenly stuck back in my head after not having listened to it since I last posted. This discussion alone was enough to revive the earworm.

    :-)

  7. Unknown's avatar

    Late reply to this: Thank you. We loved this movie when it came out.

    Played the vid a couple times, got the guitar out and found out I remembered how to play this song. The missus started singing it in the kitchen.

    She almost never sings. It were a treat.

Add a Comment