Lost in Translation is an unexpectedly beautiful movie about twodislocated, insomniac Americans who find a temporary happiness ineach other.
Bill Murray plays Bob, a famous American actor who has come toTokyo to make millions to advertise for Japanese whiskeycommercials. Scarlett Johansson plays Charlotte, a young wife leftbehind in the hotel by her busy, trendy photographer husband.
The two find themselves unable to sleep in the giant, constantlyblinking and bedazzling city.
Frequenters of the bar, they find in each other an escape fromthe tacky untrue nature of Tokyo and a flirtation that strugglesthrough the fact that their spouses and previous lives have notdisappeared.
It would have been a terrible movie if the infatuation was justflippant lust. However, director Sofia Coppola does an excellentjob of making love in a film seem real, with all of its delayedreactions, hesitations and glory. I haven't seen infatuation onfilm come off so truly since Punch Drunk Love. And when it's timefor them to leave Tokyo, they have both found more beauty in thecity than they saw before and struggle with how to end their lovingfriendship.
Surprisingly, the film is hilarious. Coppola contrasts Murray'slaid-back cynicism against the Japanese tendency of overwhelminganxiousness, standing too close, talking too fast and too loud. Heis the tallest one in the elevator, had to bend to get under theshowerhead and grows weary of not being able to understand theJapanese's attempts to speak English to him.
One of the funniest scenes is when a Japanese director is tryingto explain to Bob how he would like him to endorse the whiskey. Thedirector prattles on for a long time, gesturing and makingexaggerated faces. When the translator has listened to it all, sheturns to Bob and says, "He said he wants you to turn toward thecamera."
The film is filled with this kind of humor -- of the desperationthat comes when you are unable to really communicate with anyone,even those of the same language.
Bob can't seem to have a good telephone conversation with hisangry, busy wife. Charlotte can't get through to her friend, overthe phone, her fears of marriage and can't get her trendy husbandto listen to her.
The cinematography and shot locations echo this theme, switchingfrom the screaming, bustling city of Tokyo to the quiet, spiritualplaces of worship in the Japanese countryside as Bob and Charlottefind hope in a sea of misunderstanding people -- its own unique,quiet kind of love.
