Some might call it pre­ten­tious. Some might call it imprac­ti­cal. But I love for­eign films with a pas­sion that can’t be stopped. And I call it sassy.

There’s this film you may have heard of  — it’s called “Slumdog Millionaire.” Besides its bril­liant con­ver­sion of Fairy Godmothers to Fairy Self-Made-Mans by the direc­tor that brought us British hor­ror flick “28 Days Later,” “Slumdog” also con­verts some­thing you may have missed: The Indian lan­guage via sub­ti­tles. It’s easy to over­look, but in seam­lessly inte­grat­ing the sub­ti­tles into the film, “Slumdog” suc­ceeds where oth­ers have failed. Miserably.

Sorry “In the Mood for Love,” gone are the days where dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion between speak­ers is denoted by dashes at the bot­tom of the screen and recur­ring thoughts of “Uhh… what just hap­pened?… Who said that!?… I can’t keep up! Kari, why would you bring me here?! I TOLD you I only ever liked TWO for­eign movies and that’s only because it was Kristin Scott Thomas! So what if she was speak­ing English!? Why would you do this to me?! I JUST CAN’T DO THIS ANYMORE!”

“Slumdog Millionaire” inte­grates its subs directly into the film’s visual field, mak­ing for a well-planned, comic book-like read, cre­at­ing a direct visual link between speaker and dia­logue (and, for all you lazy daisies out there: It almost doesn’t feel like you’re read­ing! Bonus!).

But first, a lit­tle his­tory. Traditionally, sub­ti­tles have been a gar­ish color (like bright yel­low… paired with an ever-popular 249068230968 point black stroke, just in case the hot pink gets lost on top of Yojimbo’s samu­rai out­fit) in order to not con­flict with the ground on which they fall and remain con­sis­tent in look through­out the movie. In poorly done films, there is an abrupt color change (to accom­mo­date a sim­i­larly col­ored neon or crazily tex­tured back­ground) or, no color change at all (cue the clumsy black stroke!), which will result in dis­tracted and poorly-informed view­ers. In a few cases, films resort to an aspect ratio’s bot­tom black bar for opti­mized view­ing of their typog­ra­phy. While this may seem like the best option from a clar­ity and aes­thetic stand­point, this isn’t good for direc­tion of the audience’s eye, which must con­stantly return to the bot­tom of the screen. Thus, a fab­u­lous oppor­tu­nity for liven­ing up a film that could oth­er­wise be lost in trans­la­tion, is passed over, leav­ing the audi­ence, or maybe just me, dead on the inside.

However, there is a bea­con of hope that promises sweet sal­va­tion from tacky, no-form-follows-function-ing words which will hin­der my date-night movie selec­tions no more! The evo­lu­tion of the sub­ti­tle, as a means of fur­ther com­mu­ni­ca­tion and engage­ment with the audi­ence, started with advances in com­puter tech­nol­ogy and movies like “Nochnoi Dozor.” In movies such as this, sub­ti­tles are cre­atively styled and play­fully alive, the typog­ra­phy “speak­ing” as much as any character’s dialogue.

So, back to “Slumdog.” With the base-level con­cern — leg­i­bil­ity — no longer being an issue (the sub­ti­tles fall on a green tint — a sim­ple and effec­tive solu­tion to this design prob­lem), the direc­tor, and there­fore the audi­ence, is granted more cre­ative free­dom and can get past the basics onto bet­ter things, more artsy-fartsy things. There is no labored mis­tak­ing who said what to whom, lead­ing to glee­ful, more invested view­ers. This affords, not only for per­fectly syn­chro­nized infor­ma­tion deliv­ery, but also direc­tion of the audience’s eye towards the action/actors/visual pay­off. Furthermore, the copy is sud­denly so leg­i­ble, that there is no need for heav­ily out­lined sans-serif type. If you look closely, you can make out teeny tiny ser­ifs! Finally, for the con­ser­va­tion­ist in us all, where “Nochnoi Dozor” might have gone a lit­tle nuts, “Slumdog” shows restraint and pays respect to its roots with con­sis­tency in size, place­ment and color, lend­ing cred­i­bil­ity to sub­ti­tles as the “new thing” in movies. Refreshing! Revolutionary! Dynamic!

What is the future of sub­ti­tles? Like design, sub­ti­tles are only as good as the peo­ple who lov­ingly rec­og­nize their poten­tial. The upgrade of the world’s sub­ti­tles will be a slow process… but it can be done and it starts with the viewer’s recog­ni­tion of what they are see­ing. Until then, remem­ber, folks: Subtitles are your friends.