It's not often I watch a film at random. Almost never, in fact. I like to plan my viewing. This is one of my rare exceptions. This weekend I'm visiting my son in Obersontheim. Today I was in the bathroom taking a shower. As I was drying myself off I heard a woman's voice. I thought it was someone visiting, so I got dressed as quickly as I could. "Twilight" was running on television. It had only just started, and the woman I had heard was Annina Braunmiller doing the German language voice-over for Kristen Stewart in the opening scenes. I'd only missed the first five minutes, so I couldn't resist watching the rest of the film.
This was the first film that Annina had ever dubbed into English, a big responsibility for a young beginner, but I was amazed at the quality of her speaking. Due to the success she's been Kristen Stewart's voice in every film she's made since 2008, apart from which she's dubbed another 50 films by lesser known actresses. The two main characters in the film were dubbed by more experienced German speakers, Johannes Raspe as Robert Pattinson and Max Felder as Taylor Lautner. German dubbing always has high quality, but "Twilight" sounded so perfect that it could have been a German film.
From left to right: Max Felder as Jacob, Annina Braunmiller as Bella, Johannes Raspe as Edward Cullen. In Germany the people responsible for the dubbing aren't anonymous, they're stars in their own right. If only foreign films could be dubbed into English so professionally. Then dubbing wouldn't be despised the way it is.
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I still need to watch this first film in the series. The following ones sadly fit the law of 'diminishing returns'. I have read the book this is based on, and it wasn't terribly deep but clearly had something to inspire a full blown film franchise.
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