To El Prado to see 'Un diós slavaje', Polanski's latest film ... or 'Carnage', to give the English title … or 'Le Dieu du carnage', to give the title of the original play written in French by Yasmina Reza. Seeing this striking film in El Prado was a little quaint, even bizarre. El Prado is the most run-down cinema I know, faded and tattered, with lumpy, creaky seats and completely inadequate heating – in the winter it's wise to take a good overcoat and a scarf. There isn't even much body-warmth to help, since it is rare for the audience to rise above single figures. The only reason that it survives, we imagine, is because the cinema is just a part of the whole Prado, which is a kind of social club which provides a pleasant bar and garden, and acts as a venue for all kinds of local activities from chess tournaments to all-night fiestas during Carnaval. It is one of two casinos in Sitges, which have documented histories going back a century or more – remembering that in Spanish 'casino' has the basic meaning of 'social club' and doesn't have to have anything to do with gambling.

The cinema may be pretty uncomfortable, but it is cheap and it does show good films - like 'Carnage', which has excellent performances from all four of the cast, displayed skilfully by Polanski's clear and elegant filming and montage. I won't go into details (there is a clever and informative trailer on the official website ) - my point here is that we were struck by the way that the film has a genuinely intercultural quality. Or rather, the way that the original script of the play which led to the film script can surely be translated into practically any modern cultural context.

We got onto that line in the restaurant afterwards while trying to work out what the original filmscript said in English, given that we had watched a Spanish-dubbed version. The two couples in the film have, it turns out, rather bizarre pet-names for each other – explained by complicated anecdotes. One of these is 'Cucu' in the Spanish dubbing, related to a Spanish children's song. This must have caused the translator some headaches, finding an appropriately silly name, with an explanation which could be fitted into the restrictions of the dubbing process. But what, we wondered, was the name + song in the English version … and what in the original French version? And ... I now discover that the play has been translated into Japanese ! Surely, however, in every culture there are childrens songs, and in every culture adult couples call each other quirky childish names.

More fundamentally, the whole argument of the text, presented on stage or on screen, or translated into whatever language, is trans-cultural: it argues that beneath the masks of civilised politeness lurk savage forces of frustration and anger. The work is described as a 'black comedy', and indeed there are hilarious moments – but the comedy only exists for the observer, and is the more comic the more serious the black stresses are for the characters. This combination of comedy and violence would seem to be pan-human.

Then again, we wondered about translation: the film is set in New York, but the original play was set in Paris – did this change of social context involve any changes in details? And what of the Japanese version ? For instance, at one point a particular character is violently sick all over another character's treasured set of art books - Kokoschka, Bacon, and other major modern painters. These have specific significances within the context of cultivated New York society, but would the same details work as well in Japan, say, or in an Arabic translation?

The new Subject Guide pays significant attention to 'the intercultural dimension', but how do we approach this? Is it that cultural differences are simply different ways of expressing common human behaviours? Or … are the real cultural differences vertical rather than horizontal: the differences between different strata of societies ('vertical') rather than differences between societies in different parts of the world ('horizontal') ?