Lost in Translation (Widescreen)

Longtime filmgoers may remember Richard Linklater's 1995 "Before Sunrise", which starred Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy as an American man and a French girl who meet and develop a romantic relationship over the space of a few hours while he's backpacking through Europe. It's a film that I quite liked. But "Lost in Translation" is not only a similar movie. It's a better and more complex one. "Before Dawn" was sometimes a little too in love with its own wordiness.

Sofia Coppola's script for "Lost in Translation" is fairly minimalist, leaving plenty of room for Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson to develop their relationship through a look, a gesture, a moment of silence. And then there are the added complications. Murray's character Bob Harris is facing a mid-life crisis. Johanssen's Charlotte is in her early to mid-twenties. Both are married.

Bob is a slightly over the hill actor who - he tells Charlotte - could be at home doing a play but is in Tokyo to do an ad for whisky for 2 million dollars. Charlotte is the wife of a fashion photographer, played by Giovanni Ribisi who's in town to do a shoot. Charlotte's been married two years, and is beginning to think she doesn't really know who her husband is. Bob has been married for 25 years and it's a marriage that seems to exist for the sake of the children. During their cross world phone calls neither he nor his wife seem to be very open with one another emotionally.

Both characters are jet-lagged and suffering from insomnia. In the early hours of the morning they find themselves sitting next to one another in the hotel bar, and they begin to get to know one another, something that probably would not have happened had they not been adrift, strangers in a strange land.

And to them at least Tokyo is a strange land. Charlotte feels the alienation of the outsider. Bob's cultural collisions are - as one would expect when Bill Murray is playing the character - somewhat more amusing. Some of them, notably a session shooting photographs for the whiskey campaign, are ad-libbed by Murray and the Japanese cast. In another scene a Japanese prostitute sent to his room by his gracious hosts won't take no for an answer, and seems determined that he should lick her tights or lip her tights. It takes him a while to catch on.

A Japanese character nicknamed Charlie Brown singing the Sex Pistols "God Save the Queen" in a karaoke bar, does - after all -have potentially humorous overtones. And the film's not any less satirical in its portrayal of many of the Western characters, including a Western lady jazz singer in the hotel bar, a Hollywood actress in Japan to promote an action movie in which she co-starred with Keanu Reeves, or even Bob himself. One encounter between Bob and the jazz singer, and its after-effects, are simultaneously stinging, funny and poignant.

Bob stays in Tokyo a few extra days to appear on an absurd TV chat show. Charlotte is left alone as her husband leaves town for a shoot. They begin to hang out together. They begin to realise that despite the age difference, and their different places in life they are experiencing very similar self-doubts. And they like each other. A lot. But where are they going to go with it? I'm not going to give much of that away, but it's an extremely sensitive portrayal of a budding relationship between what is - in some ways only - an odd couple.

I liked this movie. A lot. Lost in Translation seems to run the gamut of reactions to it though. Some people love it, some people hate it, others remain bored and indifferent. Here's a brief rundown of why I love it
1. Coppola's camera. The cinematography is beautiful, the camera tech reflects and amplifies the story, and Tokyo is allowed to shine.
2. The writing. Dialogue is well-crafted and the actions are significant. Also, though some say it's a boring movie, I liked the pacing.
3. Coppola's character direction. The nuances of the performances and what's said and what's not said, these things come together to create vivid character studies. And of course, to go with this...
4. The actors. Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson, and Giovanni Ribisi are all very good and convincing. The interactions between these characters almost become separate entities in themselves.
5. All that pretentious conceptual stuff. Hey, I don't think it's a pretentious film, but others seem to think so. I actually thought this movie hit the mark it was aiming for, in tone and in a consistent portrayal of themes. For me, this is about alienation and the power and weakness of words. And it's a love story. Actually, speaking of that, my last and most specific point...
6. The romance avoids cliches. Sure, a lesser director with less imagination might've pandered to the audience and these two leads would eventually end up in the sack in a Lolita-esque conclusion, but I think it's more believable the way it all actually works out, and there's more emotional impact in the end in my opinion. I applaud Coppola's choice to keep this affair subdued. Even though Bob and Charlotte's relationship seems to be sexual at some deep level, it's not about sex. It's about how these characters find each other and relate to each other so fantastically, in words but more importantly in ways words can't convey.

that's it for me.

Many complain of the lack of plot to this movie, but as I see it, the action of the movie lies not in what happens, but rather in how the characters interact with each other. Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson play off each other well, as they look to each other to find something familiar to hold on to. These characters are definitely three dimensional, living and breathing on their own due to the excellent casting. This is probably Bill Murray's finest work due to the similarity of his character to himself. It is a shame that he didn't get the oscar for this part.

The screenplay for this movie was simple and real, focusing on subtleties of commuinication and interacting, while giving us a glimpse of Japan's urban lifestyle. One must remember that this is the theme of the movie. We actually feel for Bob and Charlotte as they are unable to connect emotionally with the people around them. This is emphasized by the fact that they can't speak the language. The foreign aspect of Japan becomes a metaphor for their feelings of displacement in their lives. Often is the source of many of the humourous events in the movie, but it is done is a respectful manner showing Sofia's love for this city and country. And so it is that in finding each other they also find a new appreciation for life in general.