Lost in Translation
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Movie Reviews of Lost in Translation
Movie Review: Two Lost Characters Find Themselves in Tokyo
Summary: 5 Stars
Sofia Coppola's "Lost in Translation" is, for lack of a better word, a masterpiece. Grounded by two wonderfully restrained performances by two talented actors as well as a pitch-perfect supporting cast, this movie tells a melancholy, intelligent romantic tale of two lost Americans who find redemption in each other.
There may not be a better city in which to cast Americans adrift than Tokyo. Ms. Coppola's personal experiences in this neon-lit metropolis reportedly provided some of the inspiration for this movie, and the movie definitely satisfies that backstory. A very quiet film, many of its most important moments transpire when a single character silently tries to absorb this fantastic place, and simply comes up short. Whether its a shot out over the city from a high motel window, or up from the streets to the gigantic neon advertisements, the viewer perpetually shrinks to insignificance in the face of Tokyo's sheer mass.
Bill Murray plays Bob Harris, an actor's whose cinematic successes and his ambition are behind him, in town to shoot a booze commercial for $2 million. He is saddled with a bevy of Japanese "handlers" at his hotel who are over-eager to assist him, and his attempts to work with his Japanese-speaking director are priceless (needless to say, Harris speaks no Japanese and doesn't want to make the effort to learn). Murray may have been cast perfectly in his world-famous comedies like "Caddyshack" and "Stripes," but he was born to play Bob. Murray radiates fatigue, and his tired eyes reveal a soul that could find the humor in his ridiculous situation but is just too drained to make the effort. His repeated phone calls home to his distant wife fail to recharge his soul, and if anything, create a bigger burden to bear. Bob is truly a man too weighted down by his choices to pursue his dreams any longer.
Charlotte (Scarlett Johannson, in another shockingly good performance) is in many respects Bob's alter ego. Charlotte's obtuse, insensitive husband John (a great supporting performance by Giovanni Ribisi) is a photographer in Tokyo for a shoot, and Charlotte has tagged along. John, eager to make it in the entertainment biz, quickly abandons Charlotte, and she is cast adrift in the enormity of Tokyo. But as a 25-year old Yale graduate, she is intelligent enough to know that she should be doing more but is perhaps too young to know what her life's ambition should be. In her own way, Charlotte is as adrift as Bob, but she bears the burden of cautious inexperience.
These two lost souls meet in the chic hotel bar. Bob is attracted to Charlotte's beauty and innocent wit, while Charlotte is drawn to this man of charm and obvious experience. Soon they are exploring both Tokyo and each other, both through their conversations and their mutual ability to inspire the good things in each other. Romance is obviously kindling between them, but both also put on the brakes . . . out of a combined sense of propriety -- both are married after all -- and also a sense that this relationship is too important for a tumble in the sack.
Eventually, the movie builds to its much-discussed climax, a whispered assertion that will have you leaning forward in your seat as you strain to hear what is actually said. This entirely unexpected ending is one of the most romantic and hopeful moments you will ever see on screen.
If you have ever complained that all Hollywood is interested in is big-budget star-driven shoot-em-ups that spend more effort on their stunts than their dialogue, this movie is a perfect antidote. While it's doubtful that "Lost in Translation" will create a tourist boom for Tokyo, the movie is also made with an obvious affection for the big Japanese city, and that in its own way is touching as well.
A must for the film library!
Movie Review: Interesting reaction, but what does it mean?
Summary: 5 Stars
I've only read the latest two reviews before feeling the urge to put finger to key. Some aspects of this film have been covered to death so I'll try to avoid them, and just stick in the stuff that people seem to miss or misinterpret.The last reviewer suggested that the film suffers from being directionless, which is exactly the same reaction I got from a friend of mine. The film isn't plot-driven, and isn't meant to be. The approach is almost documentary-style. What you see is a series of choice scenes, probably edited from three times as much footage (I read in an interview that the script was only 75 pages long and much of the film was improvised). It seems that Coppola gave the characters to the actors and let them explore the themes of the film.
Which brings me to the second point. Two reviews down someone says there's nothing to think about, quite an astonishing criticism given on how many levels the film explores the themes of it's title. Many cliches are turned on their heads in this film, not least the mid-life crisis theme. The title alone cuts the cliche down to size, exploring how in Bob's (Murray) life things have literally been 'lost in translation'. Even with his (now dwindling) success over the decades, his expectations of life have not been met. Something has been lost. These themes are much explored in Ozu's masterpiece Tokyo Story too, a film that Lost In Translation's detractor's would no doubt abhor, as adored as it is. Bob is also the end-result of a character at the other end of life, Charlotte (Johannson), who having just married a workaholic photographer, is beginning to see exactly how life will turn out. These themes of what so many of us lose out on in life are the main crux of the film, and the most compelling and profound. But the title has other meanings. We see Charlotte exploring Japanese history alone, and is left cold by the beautiful temples and feels distant from the traditional Japanese weddings. Not only is this because she has no-one to share these moments with, but it's also the oh-so familiar tourist feeling of going all the way to see something that you know you should be excited about, only to have the reality let you down for no apparent reason. The idea of these attractions often are the attraction, but the reality often loses something in translation.
On another level, the film explores the translation (as in change of co-ordinates) of people from one culture to another, and here the film has been accused of racism or stereotyping. Stereotypes are indeed invoked, but along with the mixed up 'r's and 'l's there's an American actress thanking someone for thinking she was aneorexic. The kneejerk reactions to these rely on double standards and are not to be taken seriously. Coppola obviously has great fondness for Tokyo, but is as willing to criticise and indeed poke fun as she is to make ode to.
As well as people being translated between cultures, the translation of cultural phenomena between cultures is explored. An insane talk show shows how the Graham Norton formula doesn't work everywhere, and that's a real show!
So there is plenty to think about (and talk about judging the length of this review), it's not racist and it doesn't rely in the slightest on narrative drive or character arcs (what would McKee think?). It is a beautiful, beautifully judged film about realising the limitations of most lives, and getting through one week of it with someone who is a stranger but you still recognise. There is a definite duality here, a contradiction of how disappointing and yet how exciting life is, evoked most explicitly when the wonderful Bill Murray turns another cliche on its head by giving the obligatory speech about how wonderful it is to have children and at the same time inferring that this is also a loss.
Movie Review: Translating jet-lag for the screen
Summary: 5 Stars
When Sofia Coppola stormed the silver screen in 1999 with her breakthorugh movie "Virgin Suicides", you could clearly see that talent really does run in the family. That film was still somehwat rough around the edges but the touching story, the soft visual language, and her choice for music (Air) made up for it thousandfold. And luckily Sofia hasn't lost an inch of her touch, but has rather grown maturer (both visually and story-wise).Bob Harris (Bill Murray) is one of those actors who once where on the cover of every magazine and in every blockbuster, but whose career is now on its way downhill. He has found himself a new audience in Japan, a country that still remembers his past glory and is fascinated by everything American. This time he is in Tokyo to promote a whiskey and when his director explains to him in a minute-long intense Japanese monolgoue how he should say those few lines, the translation is, "Turn to the camera and say the words." He is literally lost in translation and drowning in his mid-life crisis.
At the same time a young American photographer (Giovanni Ribisi) is staying at the same hotel with his wife. Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) has a Yale degree in philosophy, she is married to a guy who doesn't understand that they are slowly drifting appart, and she has chosen to come along to avoid doing nothing at home. She is at the point in her life when everthing seems to be coming down.
And then the actor and the wife meet. They glimps each other over the hotel, seeing that both of them are as lost in their present surroundings as the other one. And one night in the bar (where a failed American singer is entertaining her faithful Japanese crowd) they discover that they both are in the middle of a crisis and in a foreign country where only the whiskey still works.
This story is at the same time about two lonely people who manage to find a soulmate, and a study of the strange little culture that is Japan. And Sofia Coppola knows both of those stories very well. Her "Virgin Suicides" was first and foremost a hit in Japan (she is almost a cult icon there), and the loneliness is the one she felt when her husband Spike Jonze was constantly working and she was stranded in a foreign country where everything is a twisted mirrorimage of its Western self.
The visuals and the story are both subtle and the right word for their characterization would be "observational". This is not a movie where the viewer is only shown the moments that define a relationship. In this movie we are shown how a relationship forms, how in loneliness the only things we need to create a bond are that same loneliness and a common language to express it. And both Murray and Johansson manage to bring this story and their characters to life with an amazing grace and intense realism.
In Japanese literature and movies, even in paintings, there are many examples of using subtlety to express important feelings. In "Lost In Translation" Sofia Coppola uses that very subtlety to speak of the same feelings and does it on a backdrop of modern Westernized Japan. A country that uses a strange magnifying glass on everything American to make it part of their everday-life in ways that the author of the original would hardly have thought possible.
Overall, I think that this is one of the best movies of 2003 and that Sofia Coppola is one of those young directors whom to keep my eye on because her future is deffinitely bright. It seems that weren't it for the fact that Peter Jackson just has to get an Oscar for his magnificent achivement of bringing Tolkien's world to the big screen, Sofia would be my top choice for the Best Director Oscar. But then again Sofia does have a lifetime to collect them for her mantelpiece (or wherever she will place them).
Movie Review: Great Movie
Summary: 5 Stars
It was nice to see this movie. There we are, in Tokio with Bill Murray... This guy is one of the few good actors in Hollywood, a pit he has been so underestimated all these years! He has this thing that you just look and get engaged, what is essential for his role in this movie.I think people is so used to watch "easy-to-see expect-an-unintelligent-audience soap-opera cheesy-and-popcorn good-guy-gets-good-girl" sort of movies, that they get a bit confused with this one. And it's not a matter of watching this movie with an open mind... just sit, eat your popcorn (this isn't any problem), and try to think 2 minutes after watching it... (no, it isn't necessary make a long reflection)... Actually, you can skip thinking 2 minutes too...
The very thing that I loved in this movie is that what everybody is expecting to happen at any time (sooner or later... probably later, in the end, as usual...) never happens...
I hope I'm not spoiling things here... But the story is very simple... nice guy (Bill Murray) meets a nice girl whose husband lets her too much time alone... Besides, the nice guy is far from home and isn't getting nice conversations with his wife in the phone...
Well, what does everybody expect to happen here? I'm not even say...
The real spoiler might be that... it doesn't happen!
And that's great that it doesn't happen... Seeing the trailer one can understand what this movie is really about...
The guys don't speak japanese and need translators.. but they suddenly share something that doesn't need translation, which is friendship! And that's it. Nothing more, nothing less. Just friendship.
For people that think that they understand immediately the point of other people... I would say at this point.. You are wrong...
No I'm not saying that just because this movie breaks with a cliche this automatically makes it better than the others. I'm not even saying that it's better than anything. I'm just saying this is a good movie, I enjoyed it, I hope you enjoy too, and you get an enriching experience as I did. What's nice in the movie is the interaction among the characters and how people simply can't avoid feeling unhappy just because they're passing some time bored or a bit lonely, and don't have a nice way to kill time or some nice company...
The point here is: Bill Murray is married and have some children! He's passing for some kind of personal crisis, and his relationship is not wonderful, but it's no reason for him to get a divorce and begin another relationship, just because he's going out with a nice young girl (that probably would turn out to be like his wife after some time engaged in a relationship with him...)
Let us face the facts, no relationship is perfect and wonderful all the time. The truth is that one wouldn't be necessarily more happy just switching partners every time things are not so good and one meets another "nice" one... Of course, I'm not saying that one wouldn't want, if possible... Well... I hope you get my meaning here...
The girl in the movie is just bored!
She's not enjoying things, she doesn't like japanese tv, doesn't feel anything in a japanese church, doesn't comprehend (nor wants to understand) japanese culture, etc.. And his husband is leaving her too much time alone... That's her problem... She simply can't avoid the feeling that she's not as happy as she wanted to be... Besides, she's not even considering the hypothesis that she might be passing for a rich moment in her life.
However, it doesn't mean that get involved with Bill Murray would make her life better, or make her more talented (other thing that she complains, that she's not very talented for her work...).
That's it... So what?
See the movie, and see what happens...
Movie Review: Missing the point
Summary: 5 Stars
I see so many of the comments on "Lost in Translation" miss the point completely. It is not an "adolescent" exercise in "alienation". The fact that some think it is solely about alienation is just more evidence of not "getting" it. The distance that comes from being in a different culture is secondary. It's about two people facing the possibility of change in their lives who could take one path but instead opt for giving each other strength and support and non-judgemental (unconditional)love. And there's nothing adolescent about that insight, or the beauty with which Miss Coppola puts it on screen. There's much more adolescent about what some people would have preferred to happen.
Bob Harris (Bill Murray) is an older actor in a marriage that's breaking down. He's earning 2 million dollars for his family by doing an ad that goes against his basic principles as an actor, but still his wife is accusatory, just pragmatic, or cold. At one point he tries to speak to her on the phone, and she cannot really reciprocate. Maybe everyday life has taken the spark out of their marriage. Sometimes people just stop trying.
In meeting Charlotte (Scarlett Johannson) he encounters someone at a much earlier stage in her life, but who is also facing disillusionment with her marriage. In Bob's case, perhaps his marriage can be saved, but it is unlikely that Charlotte's will, because she is not part of the problem. Her husband (Giovanni Ribisi) is too glamor-struck to be a good bet for long. Maybe she hasn't come to terms with this yet, but she is aware of it.
So the story, no less "mature" than "Brief Encounter" is about what will happen to these two. How far will they go? Is shared sadness a solid grounding for a life?
Both of them see possibility here, in a situation where they are isolated from home. Romantically, Bob could fall further for Charlotte, but he'd prefer a meaningless fling, because ultimately it will be less of a life-devastating change. There's a beautiful scene on a bed where many men would have lied, played down the value of their other life, to build up romantic possibility, but Bob settles for truth.
Both of them give each other some strength to face what they must face. We don't HAVE to hear what Bob says. We know it is aimed at that. And in a way, whatever we heard would seem a disappointment when we know the emotion behind what is said. One person might love it, another might hate it. But it only needs to mean something to Charlotte. And many viewers here have shown only too clearly they would not get that point whatever they heard.
I don't see how people see no plot or no point in any of this unless they define plot solely as conventional Hollywood story-telling. There is plenty of plot, plenty of point for the intelligent viewer, and a hundred times as much characterisation as in most commercial films I've seen in the past decade.
Plot, from the Greek Tragedies on down, is characters facing conflict who encounter it and grow. These characters do. The fact that the conflict is internal and not an alien or terrorist or murderer seems to give some people problems.
Coppola's judgement in all aspects, from a script with lots of spaces for mood to her handling of actors, is assured and mature. No one but Bill Murray could have played Bob Harris, unless it were maybe a deadpan English actor like Michael Caine. And Scarlett Johansson is both vulnerable and likeable. The film is beautiful to look at too.
And yes, it does not race pell mell through Tokyo. It takes time to let you look at things and figure out what people are feeling and thinking. For feeling and thinking viewers it's a rare and beautiful godsend.
The reason so many critics voted this a terrific movie is simple. It is.