Tony's Corner: A Fan's Notes
"LOST IN TRANSLATION"
Dear Readers,
Hi, remember me? I've been away from my desk here
at Le Paradis Central for far too long, and while it's certainly not always easy to come
up with a full column's worth of De Palma related material on a regular basis, given that,
let's just say I've taken the excuse of writer's block to a whole new level, and over the
past many months have been just a wee bit derelict in my duty.
So from here on out here's the plan: Tony's Corner is up and running again at a regular
clip. The emphasis will always be on Brian De Palma, hence the name of the website you're
on, but after much rumination I've decided that it's better to have something... Anything,
to write about, than it is to write nothing. Therefore when the De Palma well runs dry, as
it will from time to time during those fallow periods of major inactivity, we'll
concentrate more on movies in general, even when they're only peripherally connected to De
Palma.
With that in mind I offer up to you a review, with some minor spoiler content, of a film
I've seen recently that I'm just head over heels in love with. I know I'm hardly alone in
that assessment, and I make no claims to being anything resembling a professional critic,
so if you're looking for any earth-shattering insights, you're in the wrong place, my
friend... But from one movie lover to a bunch of others, here are some random thoughts on
Lost in Translation.
A Journey of the Heart
LOST IN TRANSLATION, the second effort from 32 year-old writer/director Sofia Coppola is a
deleriously romantic movie that will dazzle the eyes and melt even the hardest hearts of
discerning moviegoers, without ever softening their brains. Coppola has seemingly done the
impossible: she has made a very personal, idiosyncratic art film that is also universal
enough in it's appeal to become something of a hit with the multiplex masses. Eschewing
any need for a linear plot and traditional story-telling methods, LOST IN TRANSLATION is
more of a mood piece, like a favorite song, especially if that song happens to be Roxy
Music's transcendent "More Than This," which plays a part in a key scene that
takes place in a Tokyo karaoke bar that, like the film as a whole, is equal parts
sublimely funny and deeply romantic.
So what is the move about? Well it's about loneliness, dislocation, stasis, you know, all
the usual Hollywood staples. The film revolves around two main characters, Bill Murray's
Bob Harris, a middle-aged Hollywood movie star who was huge in the seventies, but who is
now seemingly content to coast on his image to the tune of $2,000,000, which is what he's
being paid for a hawking a Japanese whiskey in televison and print ads. Scarlett Johansson
is Charlotte, a recent college grad, barely two years into a marriage she has a growing
suspicion may have been a mistake. Inevitably, these two unlikely lost souls seek out and
find their kindred spirit amidst the hurtling insanity, the mad video game-like rush of
life in twenty-first century Tokyo.
How they tentatively go about forming what is at first a friendship, before ever so slowly
blossoming into something more, is the real beating heart of LOST IN TRANSLATION. In a
series of sequences that Coppola filmed verite-style on the streets and in the bars, hotel
rooms, video arcades, and even sex clubs of Tokyo, we follow Bob and Charlotte as their
initially fumbling attempts at communication and connection, mirrored by the hectic
craziness of their surroundings, soon evolves into an intimacy so pure and unspoiled that
Coppola, in an ending that may be one of the most emotionally satifying and inspired I've
ever seen, dares to leave the audience out of their privileged final moment on the streets
of Tokyo.
What makes LOST IN TRANSLATION so much more than just another love story, comes down to
one key factor: Sofia Coppola. In her first film, a fine adaptation of Jeffrey Eugenidies'
novel THE VIRGIN SUICIDES, Coppola proved that she had a unique and distinctive voice, and
a filmic style all her own. Through her direction of actors, camera placement and
movement, and an incredibly prescient use of music, she is able to sustain a mood of
etheral romanticism that is wholly unlike anything else you've ever seen. The gigantic
leap forward in LOST IN TRANSLATION, an original screenplay, is in the emotional
undercurrent that is felt strongly throughout. This is not some young girl's romantic
fantasy we're dealing with here, these characters are very real, with an emotional weight
that is at times painful to witness. An early scene has Charlotte in tears on a
trans-pacific phone call to a friend back in the states. She is trying to relay her fears
and doubts regarding her marriage, but the person on the other end is oblivious,
expressing envy that it is she who's not in Japan, and brusquely excusing herself when
work calls to her attention, leaving Charlotte alone with her tears. Coppola holds her
camera on the actress, allowing it to linger far longer than most American directors
would, the result being that the emotion of Johansson's performance begins to extend
outside of the frame and seep right into our very hearts.
These performances are astounding. Bill Murray has been a national treasure since the
early days of Saturday Night Live and his brilliant turns in comedy classics like
GHOSTBUSTERS, STRIPES and GROUNDHOG DAY. More recently he's shown far more range in films
like RUSHMORE and THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS. His work here is relevatory. The sarcastic
wise-ass humor that is Murray's stock and trade is still very much in evidence. Witness
his hilarious encounter with a pretentious Japanese director on the set of his commercial
shoot. There is a later scene in which Murray does battle with an hotel gym's exercise
machine that in the hands of any other actor could seem painfully cliched, but is here
laugh out loud funny. No, make no mistake, Bill Murray is still one of the funniest men on
the planet, but the depth of his work in LOST IN TRANSLATION, the startling air of
vulnerability and insecurity he so bravely puts forth is very moving, and more than worthy
of the Academy Award nomination that is all but assured him.
Scarlett Johansson is a preternaturally gifted young woman. Still only nineteen, and
having already essayed wonderfully subtle performances in movies like GHOST WORLD and THE
MAN WHO WASN'T THERE, she plays a woman in her mid-twenties, still undetermined about the
direction her life will take. Much of her screen time is devoted to her alone, walking the
streets and taking in the sights of Tokyo, or staring longingly out of her hotel room
window at the bustling madness below, as if she were literally searching for life's
answers in the heady, foreign atmosphere of this thriving Asian metropolis. It is to her
and to her director's credit, that we feel every ounce of the pain and confusion that
she's going through. We root for her happiness and when finally, it does arrive in the
movie's closing minutes, however fleeting and uncertain it's shape, it is as transcendent
a moment as we've ever witnessed in an American film, one that is registered wordlessly.
With a single gesture: a gorgeous, generous smile.
Upon first viewing, LOST IN TRANSLATION may seem slight, evanescent. A delicate little
film that appears to dissolve right before our eyes. This is not the case. It is in fact
sturdy and strong, with a yearning heart that never yields to the easy tempations of
conventional Hollywood formula. In several interviews Coppola has said that she was
inspired by romantic classics like BRIEF ENCOUNTER and CASABLANCA, that she wanted to make
a film about a specific place, and the city of Tokyo is one she was intimately familiar
with, having spent much time there in her twenties. But there is another film that LOST IN
TRANSLATION calls to mind, one that Coppola freely admits was also an influence, Hong Kong
director Wong Kar-wai's drenchingly beautiful film, IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE, another tale of
lovers who really aren't, and a movie that even more than Coppola's places an emphasis on
mood and cinematic style over narrative content. Wong's film is one of the very best of
the past decade, a masterpiece by a master stylist. It is to Sofia Coppola's credit that
her new film can stand side by side with not only those Hollywood classics that she cited,
but also with the work of an iconclastic filmmaker that most critics consider to be one of
the very best and most audacious directors at work in world cinema today. She's made a
movie of such killer style and formal skill, of such clear-eyed love and uncompromising
intelligence, that it will knock you off your feet. LOST IN TRANSLATION is a great film.
Watching it is like falling in love again for the very first time. Not only will you not
regret it, but it's likely you won't ever forget it.
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