Local flavors and regional markers: The Low Countries and their commercially driven and proximity-focused film remake practice

Abstract

The practice of Dutch-Flemish film remaking that came into existence in the new millennium quickly appeared to be of great importance in the film industries of Flanders and The Netherlands – and consequently of Europe. Inspired by methods used in television (format) studies, this article conducts a systematic comparative film analysis of nine Dutch-Flemish remakes together with their nine source films. Considering the remake as a prism that aids in dissecting different formal, transtextual, and cultural codes, and subsequently embedding the practice in its specific socio-cultural and industrial context, we found several similarities and differences between the Dutch and Flemish film versions and showed how these can be made sense of. More generally, we distilled two encompassing principles that administer the remake practice: even though a great deal of the remake process can be explained through the concept of localization – or, more precisely, through the concepts of ‘manufacturing proximity’ and ‘banal aboutness’ – we found that it should certainly not be limited to these processes – as both (trans)textual, such as the mechanism of ‘filling in the gaps’, and contextual elements were found.

From Nordic Noir to Belgian Bright?

“…25 But using a 'similar language' is not necessarily the basis for success. In Flanders and the Netherlands, for example, despite sharing the Dutch language, films and television series are often remade, 26 rather than imported and watched in their original form. Moreover, small markets that share a language with a neighbouring larger market (Austria, Ireland, Wallonia) have struggled to develop a sustainable domestic content industry, given the popularity and high market share of content imported from these foreign players.…”

Originality versus proximity: An explorative study of audience reactions to monolingual film remakes

“…Considering the modest size of both film industries in the Low Countries, the remarkably short time period between the release of the source films and their remakes, and the popularity of these films, the practice appears to be reasonably significant. The particular linguistic aspect underscores the uniqueness (even on a global scale) of this case even more: as the source films and remakes are both spoken in Dutch (naturally except for minor differences in terms of vocabulary and accent), these Dutch-Flemish film remakes are to be considered as monolingual (Cuelenaere et al, 2019). In sum, this phenomenon is exceptional, not in the least because one of the crucial reasons of existence for transnational film remakes is the cultural proximity it wishes to (re-)establish with its target audience through the process of localization (in terms of, among others, linguistic and cultural aspects).…”

“…A previous textual analysis indicated that most of these film tandems are mainstream genre films (often romantic comedies) targeted at local audiences that ‘simultaneously seem to draw from well-known and established Hollywood industrial practices and creative tropes’ (Cuelenaere et al, 2019: 266). Moreover, it was shown that the process of localization was central to the adaptation process (i.e.…”

“…changing textual elements to make the film remake more recognizable and identifiable for the target culture). Yet, instead of arguing that this idea of localization – and the differences it generates between the source films and remakes – directly reflects clear-cut cultural differences between both regions, it was found that they are rather ‘the result of the perceptions of cultural differences and stereotypes held by filmmakers’ (Cuelenaere et al, 2019: 278). Apart from these local(ized) elements, the Dutch-Flemish film remakes show many (quasi)universal aspects (displayed in similar characters, themes, spaces, or dialogic structures).…”

“…transformed or localized), and interpreted in different media (cf. Castelló, 2010; Mikos and Perrotta, 2012; van Keulen and Krijnen, 2014; Cuelenaere et al, 2019). After a short introduction to the Dutch-Flemish remake phenomenon, I will take inspiration from and build on findings of audience research from closely related fields to finally come up with three overarching research questions: (1) How do Dutch and Flemish audiences describe and evaluate film remakes?…”