Soundtrack

Lost in Beauty

by Christian De Matteo

HUGE

       If Return of the King hadn't come out this year, there is no question in my mind that Lost in Translation would be my favorite film of the year.  Unbelievably real, funny, and depressing in the most wonderful life affirming (in other words, affirming the way life really is), Sofia Coppola's triumph of a film is everything a deep film should be.

No, it is not slow.  It really should be, and you think it should be when you're watching it, but some how it is completely engrossing in its perfect capturing of the human condition in its truest form... grossly miserable and enjoying those moments of connection (imagine Jason Lee in Chasing Amy doing the "shared a moment" move) which is all we are really granted.

No, it isn't too talky.  In fact, the dialogue is so sparse, hardly a word is said for the first ten minutes.

What the film is, is perfect.  Utterly perfect, wonderful, and funny in that Chekov kind of way.  Funny in that way that all tragedy is funny because it happens to humans.  Funny in that, life is so ridiculous how can we really do anything but shake our heads, laugh a little and take another sip of whiskey kind of way.

Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson, somehow, compliment each other totally and act off each other with such flawless and flowing chemistry, you forget you are watching a movie.  Their first full conversation in the bar, late at night, both with insomnia, is perfectly written and delivered.

Toeing these thin, fragile lines, we have a movie that shows us, with little comment, what it is to be human, what it is to live in this world, to interact with others, and, more than all else, how to (enter again Jason Lee) share a moment.

And Lost in Translation is, indeed, a moment worth sharing.

 Lost in Translation

by Helena R.

The relationship between the characters Charlotte, played by Scarlet Johansson and Bob, played by Bill Murray are based on two levels. The film can be seen as being as much complicated as it is simple.  The reasons behind their relationship remaining at the level it does, is because they both for a brief moment, acquire what they have been looking for at a pivotal point in each of their lives.

Bill Murray’s character Bob, a 57 year old actor, can be viewed as a man who lacks stimulation from his dry, impersonal wife.  He travels from location to location not having the opportunity to connect with people outside of show business. His wife is so colorless, and detached, that their conversations are not trivial, but poker faced, as when she sends him rug samples in the mail.  

Scarlet Johansson plays a young, fresh out of college wife, who realizes she has made a wrong decision.  Her husband, also 20-something, is a celebrity photographer who is jaded by the glitz and glamour of the lifestyle.  He is self- involved and it is evident that they are both blasé towards each others interests, much like Bob and his wife.

Here, in Tokyo Japan, is where these two lost souls find their chance to be who they are, someone that most people would never know. They grasp onto a feeling that they are worth something more than just the titles they hold.  
 

Bob to Charlotte is a father, a comic, a mentor, a communicator and a friend, something she found almost unattainable to find across the world. Charlotte to Bob is young, full of beauty and is intimate.  She has aspirations and is fresh. In his eyes, she is someone to care for who is realistic with him, unlike his wife who is deadly and distant.  She is looked on as a student and pupil who is impulsive at nature but is held back by her husband.  

Bob and Charlotte fulfill each others needs down to the core of their relationship. Only in such an exotic, foreign land as Japan, could these Americans find the way to converse and interlock on a level of subtle intensity as if they were in fact the only two Americans existing in Tokyo at the time.

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