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| "Look, nothing is happening!" |
These are just some of the statements I've heard from people when discussing Lost in Translation. I have a lot of friends and acquaintances who love film and TV just as much as I do. Some are sci-fi geeks. Some love action. Others love comedy. For a lot of these people, Lost in Translation is a nothing film. Well I don't care what they say, I love it and I'm not alone.
A quick look at Rotten Tomatoes and you'll see that it was one of the highest ranking films of that year for critics. Is it just a critics film? Is it stuck up and snobby? Is it just for people who like to use films to look down at people? I honestly don't think it is.
The film revolves around two lost souls in the alien city of Tokyo. Bob (Bill Murray) is being handsomely paid to shoot a whiskey commercial but he'd rather be doing a play or something more worthwhile. His wife is at home with the kids. She sends him carpet samples for him to look over as he sits alone in his hotel room. Charlotte (Scarlet Johansson) has recently married a photographer and she has accompanied him to Tokyo while he shoots a band. She knows virtually no one there and her husband doesn't seem to want her around his work. Both Bob and Charlotte are stuck. In their lives and in their marriages.
This sets up the basic principle of the film. Upon their chance meeting in an elevator (he notices her, she doesn't notice him) and then again at the bar of the hotel, the loneliness of their lives and of the surrounding city soon draws them closer. But non in a sexual way. That is not what their relationship is about. They can be intimate. They can share a look, or hold hands but it's not about sex. It's a connection between two lonely people. Somehow they feel they can share more with a stranger than they can with a spouse.
Much of the film revolves around their relationship over the short time they spend together. From singing karaoke to a visit to the hospital. But to simply to describe what happens in the film is to miss the point entirely. This isn't a film about plot, it is a mood piece that relies on the subtlety of the actors. The smallest of glances they make can say more about the characters than 20 pages of rip roaring dialogue in a Tarintino film. Bill Murray does more than simply play a character similar to his own persona in real life. He creates a whole new life that looks like it has fully lived its 50 plus years on this earth. We are not seeing a character in a film, we are seeing a few days in the life of a real person with a real life outside of this motion picture. Or so it seems, such is the quality of Murray's acting.
Sofia Coppola wrote and directed Lost in Translation for which she won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. There are moments in the film where you can't imagine the scenes could have existed if she didn't have the actors around her that she did. Would the film have worked as well if Bill Murray wasn't in it? No it wouldn't. But that's not to detract from her creation. She did after all create this world for both actors to play in. One memorable scene in the film is after Bob and Charlotte have had a fight. Well not so much a fight. There was no raised voices, just disappointing looks. The next morning as they sit in near silence in the restaurant, Charlotte makes a quip aimed at Bob for actions the night before. Bob's response is cutting.
"Wasn't there anybody else to lavish attention on you?"
The final scene between the two was not originally in the screenplay. Instead Bill Murray suggested the scene to Sofia. It was a simple scene but one that stole the show. Bob is the on the way to the airport. As his car is driving along he spots Charlotte in a crowd on the street. He gets out the car, makes his way over to her and they embrace. A hug, not a kiss. The film never set out to make these people fall in love and the avoidance of the kiss is key. It would have betrayed what goes before it if those two were forced into a fake romantic embrace. Instead we get two lonely characters hugging and sharing something. What they share, we don't know. It's not our place to know. Bob whispers in her ear but the camera doesn't pick it up. It's left up to us to imagine for ourselves what was said. It's just another reason why I love the film.
It would have been so easy to have these two characters spill their guts and have them have a big romantic moment where they describe their love one another. But they never do. Yes there is a small kiss at the end of the scene, but it's not romantic. Or at least not to me it isn't. It's two souls saying goodbye. I'll allow the film that.
Every time I watch the film, as "Just Like Honey" by The Jesus & Mairy Chain plays as the characters drift apart for one last final time, I'm left with the same feeling I had the first time I watched the film. I am content. This film soothes me in a way no other film does. I put it on when I need to think or when I just want to say hello to two of my favourite characters in recent film memory. It doesn't bother me in the slightest that some people don't get the film. I do and that's all that matters. Of course it's always nice when your opinion is shared by others. Thankfully on this film, Roger Ebert and I see eye to eye.
I don't always agree with Mr Ebert, but I always respect him. He can make valid points of criticism or praise that I might not agree with, but that are at least worth thinking about. In his reviews of Lost in Translation (linked below) he comes as close to anyone as ever done in disproving my theory that reviews themselves can't be art. Here's a man who loves this film as much as I do. And we don't care if you don't like it.
2003 original review http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20030912/REVIEWS/309120302
2010 "Great Movie" review http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100804/REVIEWS08/100809996
*There may be small spoliers in the reviews, please watch the film first*
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