Handling Language Transition/Subtitles in a Movie

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Got a question for you all: How do you think I should best handle the language transition/subtitles for a movie I'm writing the script for?

OK, well, a little bit of background info, first.

The whole movie takes place in Afghanistan, and it's about a US pararescueman who gets left behind during a patient evacuation gone wrong. So, he's surrounded by Afghan people who all, for the most part, speak only Pashto. He of course, only speaks English, except for the few words and phrases he's picked up from local interpreters during missions. An aspect is his improving comprehension and use of the language as he interacts with the locals throughout the movie, and that's what I'm trying to make a decision on how to convey.

So, here's the question: How should I handle the language transition/subtitles for the movie? Should I use complete subtitles throughout for Pashto? Should I only subtitle the Pashto words and phrases the main character understands at a given point? Should I shift the dialogue from clear-cut English and Pashto to Pashto-accented English to symbolize the character's increasing understanding of the language? Should I do some combination there-of?

Oh, and no, I'm not tailoring any of my ideas for the movie at the moment to Hollywood's expectations of an "American" film: entirely in clear English, clearly-defined black-and-white morality, etc.

I've looked into the subject myself. One of the preferred methods is this:

Jacques
(in French, subtitled)
I will take you to the hospital.

The actor speaks the lines in French which, somewhere along the way, a foreign language coach will teach the actor what those lines should be. Me? I prefer that it should be written what is being said and the subtitles written in brackets. This is to help with the ease of looking for someone to translate for you.

Jacques
Je vais vous emmener à l’hôpital.
[I will take you to the hospital].

Here's a useful link. http://letsschmooze.blogspot.com/2010/0 ... logue.html

I am actually watching a movie like that now. it is in arabic. need to hit pause alot to read it. those people talk really fast!! !! I would prefer voiceovers. like the jap kungfu stuff. when they play a song that you have to read.... really really gay. be better to have nothing, and be creative. im going to be different and say, let them speak thier language, do a voiceover so thier mouths move, and it looks completly wrong, and use thier language as the letterhead, so it looks even more foreign, and you can totally understand it. twisted.