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***Official LOST IN TRANSLATION Review Thread (1 Viewer)

Lew Crippen

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May 19, 2002
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:star: :star: out of four (worth seeing).

In general I agree with Michael’s review and Edwins’s comments (mine are in the discussion thread).
 

Kevin Porter

Supporting Actor
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Jan 10, 2002
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Alright I may be reviving a dying thread but I justed wanted to post my 2 cents. I wrote this for another venue other than the forum so forgive me if it's a bit too formal:


:star: :star: :star: :star: 1/2 out of :star: :star: :star: :star: :star:

To say that Sofia Coppola’s sophomore outing is a character masterpiece would be an understatement. These characters live breathe beyond the film. At the end of the journey, you want to know these characters more than you do. This film is essentially a tease. You never want it to end. This film is cinema at its highest and purest form.

The movie revolves around two characters, Bob and Charlotte. They both are spending a week in Tokyo. Bob is a washed up actor doing advertisements for whiskey. You can feel the he has frustration with his life in every scene. He doesn’t enjoy what he does. He’s in it for a quick buck. Charlotte is the wife of a famous photographer but feels second to his career. She enters into a temple in one scene hoping to feel something meaningful but instead walks out feeling the emptiest she’s ever felt. In the beginnings of the film, they see each other. There isn’t an instant chemistry but a mutual feeling of loneliness. They only come together after seeing each other various times. Their togetherness breaks the chains of their emptiness.

The easy way out would be to have the characters fall in love, have a conflict that separates them, and have them come back together. But thankfully, Ms. Coppola has more respect for these characters than that. These characters are too real to just write off so methodically. The attraction, romance, friendship, relationship, whatever they have, takes time. It’s mostly just about being together and sharing the experiences of life with another person. Through their togetherness they find happiness. They travel across the city through karaoke parties, hotel bars, and bizarre Japanese video arcades, just reveling in the fact that they are with each other.

There is no genre you can conveniently fit this in. There is humor, there is drama, and there is romance but to mush it into one category would be betraying it for what it is, life. It’s just life. There’s no plot point A, B, climax, and C. It just flows like honey. And once you lick the jar clean, you’ll find yourself wanting just one more taste. In fact, there isn’t much of a plot. It’s just you, the audience watching these two lonely souls stumble into something during their week in Tokyo. It doesn’t sound like much but there’s a lot more to it then that. This is probably the most original movie I have ever seen. I cannot think of another film I could compare it to.

Sofia Coppola (The daughter of that guy who made that movie about a Godfather or something) lets things happen at a real-life pace. She lets the camera linger on her subjects not to let her actors perform, but to let her characters live. She doesn’t emphasize the little treasures of her shots but instead lets the audience delight in them. In this film, Bill Murray isn’t Bill Murray. Bill Murray is Bob Harris. This new streak of less obvious roles for him began in Wes Anderson’s “Rushmore” and “The Royal Tenenbaums” and now continues in this film. He plays a man not depressed but bored with his life. Bob isn’t goofy but he has a wry sense of humor. There are subtleties that suggest sadness but we are left to draw our own conclusions about him. Though no one has hyped her performance nearly as much, Scarlett Johansson, despite being five years younger than her character, is perfect as Charlotte. Incredible performance aside, she just glows on the screen with an indefinable beauty and grace unlike anything you’ve ever seen. She conveys her longing for something more than the life she has and the emptiness of her marriage pitch-perfectly. You feel so much for Charlotte. You just want to fly to Tokyo and give her the comfort she’s searching for. This is how real this movie is and these characters are.

I am in love with this movie. Does it have flaws? Of course but what can you love that doesn’t? The movie had one scene I didn’t like (The strip club. So tacked on and unnecessary), a couple I thought were merely okay, some scenes I liked, and the rest I loved. Pretty much every scene with Bob and Charlotte shines with brilliance. The ones I loved far outweighed the ones I didn’t. One of my favorite scenes is one in which Bob’s wife sends him carpet patches and asks him to choose one to use for their study back in America. This contrast of the meaningless and the meaningful is brilliant. Part of its brilliance is the fact that Coppola chooses not to emphasize it and let us find the point of the scene.

Oscar season has officially begun and films like “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World”, “Lord of the Rings: Return of the King” and “Cold Mountain” are shoe-ins for the prestigious award. It seems that “epics” like “Master and Commander” are created not to tell a story, but to win an Oscar. I didn’t like “Gladiator” or “A Beautiful Mind” for the same reason. But this film, this film is the only one in near sight that truly deserves the title of Best Picture of the year (In Academy terms. In truth, I hold that position to Kill Bill: Volume 1). Being made on the shoestring budget of four million, there are no car chases or fight scenes or CGI effects in the movie but instead, pure human emotion.

Bob and Charlotte’s togetherness is the only thing that matters and drives their will to live life. Their relationship defines their happiness and at the end, they have gained something even the people closest in their lives could not give them. For those of you that haven't experienced the loneliness of these characters, watching this film is a good lesson on how to avoid it. Through the hands of Sofia Coppola, Bob and Charlotte find meaning and the definition of one of the only things that is really important in this life.
 

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