Lost in Translation


I saw Lost in Translation, written and directed by Sophia Coppola


Nancy and I rented Lost in Translation last night. I thought it had both good and bad points. The good - there are many evocative images of alienation. One of my favorites was right in the beginning, when Bill Murray as the movie star Bob Harris arrives in Tokyo and is driven through Tokyo. It looks both familiar and completely alien at the same time - so much like Times Square, but the messages are of course unreadable in Japanese. When he passes a huge billboard with his own face on it, in the middle of all these strange messages, the mixture of the familiar and utterly strange is beautifully evoked. The other moment I liked was when Scarlett Johansson's character (I don't remember the name) went to a temple in Kyoto and saw a wedding. Again, completely alien but also strangely recognizable. It has some very nice moments of cultural dissonance - Japanese tv is baffling, and the talk show is so strange it counts as a surreal moment from planet Mars.
On the other hand, it does not really go anywhere. Two people alienated from their lives, meet in a strange city and have a brief moment of understanding, then go back to their lives. Ultimately, I find this a little thin to hang a whole movie on. I really liked her earlier movie The Virgin Suicides which was both evocative and had a strong story. Maybe she is a better director than writer.

Posted: Sun - February 22, 2004 at 09:24 PM          

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