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Lost in Translation
***1/2
Cinema
Review - February 29, 2004
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 15. USA.
102 minutes. Written and directed by Sofia Coppola. Produced by Sofia Coppola,
Ross Katz. Starring Scarlett Johansson, Bill Murray, Giovanni Ribisi, Fumihiro
Hayashi, Anna Faris, Catherine Lambert, Tetsuro Naka, Nao
Asuka.
There's an atmosphere to "Lost in
Translation" -- it's the feeling of limbo reverie as you gaze out
of the window on a train, or when you walk through the streets on your own,
caught in a daze of observing it all while not really judging a thing. The
movie was written and directed by Sofia Coppola, who shows her characters
gaze up at Tokyo's neon lights and look like they're away with their own
thoughts. The sound design is distanced and airy; it's the hum people hear
when soaking up a new place, or recovering from their ears having popped
on a plane.
The stars are Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson,
and I can't think up many movies with two better leading actors. He was my
childhood hero, she is my current goddess. They play lonely people; lonely
because of the foreign land, lonely because of their lives. Murray is Bob
Harris, a once big movie star performing in a series of whisky commercials
when he "could be doing a play somewhere". Johansson plays a girl called
Charlotte who graduated Yale with a philosophy degree, married a photographer
and now isn't sure what to do with her life or if she is with the right
man.
They see each other in the hotel. They trade looks
that let each other know they're sharing the feeling of holding back from
the atmosphere, and finding the same things absurd. They talk, they go for
drinks, they watch TV and they form a bond. It's not exactly romantic love,
nor a great deal of sexual attraction, and it's not as slight as it would
sound if I were to call it a temporary kinship. Elements of all those things
are brought into the mix, but basically, it's this: They're taking a sidestep
from the motions of life, being there for each other and knowing they have
company as they get to grips with their lonely uncertainty.
Both are stuck in troubled marriages: Bob has
been with his wife for twenty-five years, but their phone conversations are
awkward; when one is making the effort, the other one is not interested.
Charlotte's husband is consumed by his schedule, and he hangs around on photo
shoots or drinks in the bar with an insipid movie star (Anna Farris). He
seems like an okay guy, but kind of a dope: The movie star says she's checked
into the hotel under the name Evelyn Waugh, Charlotte cracks to her husband
(Giovanni Ribisi) that Evelyn Waugh was a man, the husband asks why she has
to be so mean all the time. Coppola got the idea for this movie when married
to Spike Jonze, and tagging along on the publicity tour for "Being John
Malkovich". When you realise that, and consider that Coppola has just broken
up with Jonze, it gives the film's central relationship another layer of
poignancy: Bob and Charlotte are gazing at each other from two separate stages
of life, and after their time together, we can imagine Charlotte taking serious
stock of where her situation is headed, and maybe making decisions that will
involve a radical break from where she thought she was going to
go.
The movie should have been a masterpiece of mood
and character, and it almost is, revolving as it does around two wonderful
performances. Murray lets out quiet, bitter laughs and talks with a natural
irony that helps him plug through his worn-out state and crappy assignment.
Johansson is soft, curious, sensual, and she is able to communicate how she's
coming to terms with aloneness even when her face wears a
smile.
It's in little moments that the film gets thrown
off balance and doesn't end up flowing the way it should. Murray finds that
his shower head is designed for people two feet shorter than him; he appears
on a TV chat show with a flamboyant, obnoxious, flat-out crazy squealing
host; he finds that a call girl has come to his hotel room and is asking
him to "Lip my stocking!" Johansson gets stuck talking to the Farris character,
who, ya know, everyone totally swears is anorexic, but, like, totally eats
loadsa junk food; also at the table is a dopehead DJ who takes his beats
to "some next-level shit, like bum-badda-bum-boosh-bow!" Bits like these
don't work because they're silly cultural stereotypes; the movie is too dry,
and too empathetic, to go for humour this wacky and actually make it
funny.
Coppola should have played it straight, because
God, that atmosphere is something special. It's her major strength as a director,
and it was on show in "The Virgin Suicides", a movie I wasn't crazy about
but still thought had a wonderful look and feel. She could be a great director:
Her content isn't as profound as she seems to think, but maybe it will be
one day, and it will catch up with her style, which is graceful, poetic and
dreamy.
COPYRIGHT©
2004 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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