Subtitle artists who worked on Thallumaala have condemned Netflix for ‘butchering’ their work without respect to the nuances and their consent.

In a statement, issued by the Fill in the Blanks, the subtitle writers have expressed a feeling of betrayal over the way Netflix has handled their work. “The English subtitles of the movie Thallumaala, which we delivered to the Netflix team, were reviewed line-by-line and approved by the creative director and one of the writers, Mr Muhsin Parari. However, we are deeply saddened to inform you that the current subtitles published on Netflix are a substantially edited, watered-down, butchered version of our work. Several nuances we included in the subtitles are missing. Especially the songs! They’ve heavily toned down the songs’ subtitles to their literal meanings and made them soulless,” alleged the statement.

The team has also requested OTT platforms to respect their work. “Subtitling, being a creative work, must consider the culture, humour, connotations and local nuances of both the source and target languages. Moreover, we find it unfair and unethical to edit the subtitles without the consent of the subtitle artist/writer/director. We kindly request Netflix and other OTT platforms to abstain from doing this (sic),” the statement further read.

Netflix is yet to react to the issue.

Directed by Khalid Rahman, Thallumaala, which means the chain of fights, opened to packed houses in Kerala on August 12. The film managed to score a big win at the box office by raking in over Rs 70 crore from its worldwide ticket sales. The film also garnered positive reviews.

Thallumaala stars Tovino Thomas in the lead role. It also features Kalyani Priyadarshan and Shine Tom Chacko.