The Bourne Identity


How many tiny mistakes do you discover in the Russian passport of agent James Bourne from the Hollywood movie The Bourne Identity (2002)?

For the advanced readers: Can you justify why the fictional Russian name was transcribed in precisely these Cyrillic characters?

7 comentarios:

MOCKBA dijo...

Йцукен вашу мать, so that's how it happened :) :)

Anónimo dijo...

This was quite popular in internet a year ago: they simply put the cyrillic letters on the buttons corresponding to the English ones. It may well be left intentionally - easter egg?

Catherine dijo...

Two obvious explanations for "consul de Russie" :
1° French has always been THE language of diplomacy (note that it's still the sole language of the "Union postale universelle", at least).
2° Any well-read person knows that all Russians speak French (and it's a pleasure to find that such persons can be found in Hollywood):
— Eh bien, mon prince ! Gênes et Lucques ne sont plus que des apanages, des propriétés de la famille Buonaparte ! Non, je vous préviens que si vous ne me dites pas que nous avons la guerre, si vous permettez encore de palier toutes les infamies, toutes les atrocités de cet Antéchrist (ma parole, j'y crois), je ne vous connais plus, vous n'êtes plus mon ami, vous n’êtes plus мой верный раб, comme vous dites.

MOCKBA dijo...

Catherine, in 1998 passports, French seems to have been still in use indeed. But the country wasn't "USSR" any longer (not even the proper French equivalent "URSS").

Nevertheless the red-colored of this passport form is in English throughout, so the form itself postdates the transition to English

MOCKBA dijo...

No, I stand corrected about passport forms. Even in late Soviet years, when French transliteration was still in use (URSS and all), the passport form was already bilingual Russian/English.

The country is birth is indeed USSR in today's travel documents if that's where the bearer was born. So that's not a mistake.

However three more details are wrong.
1. Given name in Russian ought to contain patronymic.
2. City of birth ought to be spelled out in Russian (not in French, but not in English either)
3. Issuing office also must be spelled in Russian (not in French but not in English, too)

Anónimo dijo...

The official seal must cover the part of the photo.

Anónimo dijo...

It iз much simpliёЯ than you can guess. In Russian IT, there are at least 3 possible codepages (translation tables for 8bit codes to Cyrillic symbols); at most, countless. And the producer was a real cheapskate. Instead of hiring a professional linguist consultant, he just asked for typical names in the Internet. And got a reply. But this idiot used a wrong codepage for printing the name out. That simple.