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I recently re-watched Sofia Coppola's "Lost in Translation" from 2003. This film is generally revered, boasting a 95% on Rotten Tomatoes. I had some difficulty with it this time around, however. The film very genuinely captures the ennui one can feel when traveling for an extended period, and does a good job of presenting the city (Tokyo) as a character . It is beautifully shot, and its melancholy tone is gently depressing in the best possible way. The film has some genuinely human moments, but none of them so moving to warrant the praise this film seems to garner. However, I had a really hard time liking the characters this time around. Both of them cheat on their spouses in the film, Bill Murray does it twice. There are some vague attempts to justify the two leads behavior by presenting their spouses as distant and uncaring, but that's hardly justification within a marriage. On top of this, we have two characters with virtually unlimited resources loose in Tokyo, and they both manage to be bored. This behavior just seems inexcusable to me as an adult. Furthermore, the humor in this film has aged really badly. All of the Japanese characters are tired stereotypes. They are perverts, their food is weird, and their language and culture is incomprehensible. Far from a comedy of manners, this film seems to lean on Orientalism to get cheap laughs at odd times. I really feel that this movie would've bombed if it weren't for the casting. Scarlett Johannsen was something of an Indie darling when the film was released having done Ghost World (2001) two years prior. She was adored just for being at the time; but her character is flat, boring, depressed, and rude. In one scene, she's at dinner with her distant husband (Giovanni Ribisi) and several of his vapid acquaintances. She gets up and walks away from the dinner after saying very little. She goes to the bar and drinks with an older man. The whole thing seemed unrealistic, petty, and rude. However, its Johannsen and she can do no wrong as long as she is beautiful, soft, and cherubic. Similarly, Bill Murray is Bill Murray and his character would be a detestable boor had they cast anyone else in the role. As for the puzzling ending, the secret whispered. Who cares? I understand that its perhaps symbolic of them having this fleeting time in Toyko together, and that's their thing, but it doesn't make the relationship any less inappropriate. I can't think of a single thing Murray's character could've whispered that justifies their behavior. In summation: While aesthetically pleasing, this drama/comedy falls short on the drama with its utterly amoral and unlikable characters, and fails to get laughs 15 years down the line with cheap racial humor. Anyone else feel the same way?
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Mar 4, 2020 01:52
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Do you believe people have a responsibility to be excited? What sort of moral failing are they committing by being bored?
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Mar 4, 2020 02:25
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I don't believe that anyone has a responsibility to be excited. However, if you're in a foreign city with virtually unlimited freedom and you hole up in a hotel room I have very little sympathy for you. The lead characters' malaise seems very self-indulgent and I found it difficult to like either of them, which breaks the movie for me. Johannsen's character tries to break out of it by going to several temples, but to me that's just a testament to her over-education and lack of creativity. Murray's character drinks his time away at the hotel bar. To quote Ned Flanders beatnik parents "We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas". Its easy to see why Ned resented them so much. The moral failing is that they are passive bystanders in their own lives. They indulge in their own depression and use it as an excuse to commit selfish acts.
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Mar 4, 2020 04:08
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I never 'got' this movie either. The cheap laughs are the most enjoyable part of the film and they're basically cheap laughs at now threadbare stereotypes that belong in something that isn't trying to seem intelligent. The characters are unlikable and, to me at least, not people I could relate to in any way. Nothing of consequence happens to a couple of people I don't care about. Watching it felt like a waste of time.
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Mar 4, 2020 05:11
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I remember trying to watch this movie when it was new on video, having heard how hyped up it got during its theatrical run. I was bored, don't think I laughed once, and turned it off halfway through. But I also didn't like Sideways (that wine movie), so I may just be a plebeian who doesn't Get fine cinema.
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Mar 4, 2020 13:42
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I adore this movie but admit that I haven't thought about it that deeply, but I did get heavily swept up in the relationship of the two leads. Not to get too personal here but I've known several people who have been where Johansson's character is; someone who got married too young to someone they thought they had a connection with who is far too focused on their career while not being an excplicitly bad person. Ribisi's character is clearly not a bad guy, but comes across as someone not completely involved in his own marriage because of his job. Johansson's character facilitates it to a degree but it's because she loves him/is married to him and thinks that's what she's supposed to do. It's an unhappy marriage on one side and her being in a foreign land makes her feel even more isolated, and guilty because she expects this whole trip to be some kind of a booster shot to her marriage, which it absolutely isn't. Also, she doesn't really cheat on her husband, it could be argued that she does fall in love with another man though, where that goes is anyone's guess but she never acts on it, same with Murray's character, really, who is clearly in a relationship he's grown out of. I never got the feeling that they were selfish people at all, simply at a crossroads in their respective relationships. But a lot of that comes from personal experiences with people who have been in those places so it may be too easy for me to connect the dots there. As for the stereotypes, I agree that there are a few here and there but quite a bit of it came across as a love letter to Japan to me, and what the characters perceived as negatives or somehow culturally quirky or weird was mostly down to their own ignorance or inexperience and as such, ultimately was more of a joke on them rather than Japan's culture itself. I'm sure there are far more intelligent people out there who have analyzed this movie and can elaborate on my perspective more eloquently but this was my main takeaway when I first watched the movie. I should watch it again because it's been like 10 goddamn years.
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Mar 4, 2020 19:09
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I too remember hearing the mountain of praise that the film received, wanting to believe in Sofia Coppola, and then subjecting myself to a Lifetime movie starring good actors as petulant, xenophobic adults. I can understand the broad appeal however.
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Mar 4, 2020 19:37
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Oddly I remember walking out of the theater and thinking it was a pretty solid drama, but that was supplanted by a Bob the Angry Flower comic http://www.angryflower.com/506.html a year later. Memories are weird!
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Mar 4, 2020 21:03
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I just rewatched it and I'd forgotten the bit where Murray's character sleeps with the bar singer, so he is unfaithful but even so he seems to regret it, not least of all because it briefly drives a wedge in the relationship he has with Johanssen's character. And throughout the film it's pretty clear that he is very much alienated from his family, and even expresses as much in one scene, saying that his wife and kids don't need him. The Japanese stereotyping is a bit heavier than I'd remembered but despite the lame joke or two, overall I still think it paints Japan very well and fairly accurately, just through the eyes of two westerners who haven't been exposed to the culture before. I can see someone not liking the movie and that's certainly fair, but to me it does what it says on the tin; two people who are completely lost in their own lives, emotionally, geographically and at the moment, culturally, connect with each other in a significant way.
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Mar 5, 2020 01:07
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Didn't much care for the movie first time round but I was a teenager when it came out. Wonder if it's worth a second try now.
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Mar 5, 2020 02:11
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Them feeling empty despite having unlimited resources is how they realize they don’t like the current course their lives are on. It’s, like, sort of the entire point OP. ScarJos character also extremely reads of someone who has major depressive disorder and the isolation of both a foreign city and a complete inability both internally and externally to communicate with her husband is a trigger for it.
weekly font fucked around with this message at 14:54 on Mar 5, 2020 |
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Mar 5, 2020 14:51
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I disagree with the criticism that the protagonists of this or any movie must be morally justified
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Mar 5, 2020 17:55
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Red Ryder posted:I disagree with the criticism that the protagonists of this or any movie must be morally justified I agree with your disagreement. There are many great films which show the protagonist as unreliable, amoral or just flat unconcerned. However in character-driven romances, maybe more-so than other genres, having a relatable party puts a dog in the fight for the audience. Drama only really works when the audience can empathize and relate to the characters, and romance only works when there is the capacity for love and awe. If you are disgusted with the characters, you have a failure to launch. TheOmegaWalrus fucked around with this message at 18:34 on Mar 5, 2020 |
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Mar 5, 2020 18:31
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TheOmegaWalrus posted:I agree with your disagreement. I fundamentally do not see it as that kind of movie. It's not about being swept up in the romance between these two characters. They are two lonely, inwardly-focused individuals out of step with the people around them. They are sympathetic of course, but their behavior is still a sort of acting out in response to their boredom and alienation. I had no problem relating to the characters, even while finding their flaws apparent. There are plenty of stories about two people finding each other that are not meant to be instructive or aspirational, this way of looking at stories always baffles me. Is it "relatable" when Romeo and Juliet kill themselves?
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Mar 5, 2020 20:55
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The_Continental posted:utterly amoral and unlikable characters Do you only enjoy movies where the characters are likable, acting logically, and doing things you agree with? "I would never be bored in Tokyo so gently caress these characters!" is the strangest critique.
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Mar 6, 2020 00:08
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Red Ryder posted:Is it "relatable" when Romeo and Juliet kill themselves? Have you ever seen Romeo and Juliet performed by overweight, unkempt actors?
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Mar 6, 2020 00:20
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Scudworth posted:Do you only enjoy movies where the characters are likable, acting logically, and doing things you agree with? "I would never be bored in Tokyo so gently caress these characters!" is the strangest critique. If the attraction of the movie revolves around those characters, then kinda? I mean most movies with unlikeable protagonists add plot or motivation points that keep you engaged. An outright ennui projected at the audience can be pretty alienating. Like I can understand the artistic merits of an unlikeable approach, Von Trier does it well since the characters are more explicitly woven into larger meditations. But it can make things difficult to watch, particularly if the movie is billed as about a profound human connection. I have a similar coldness to Bruno Dumont's movies where the philosophy of it may be a dissection of humanity but I'm not particularly thrilled to slog through it.
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Mar 6, 2020 00:47
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They are both depressed and dissatisfied characters who are largely walking around numb. Them not feeling a whole lot about Tokyo (which is an awesome city that I hope to someday visit) is kind of the point. Also one of the biggest "charms" (I say charms, but it's definitely played ambiguously) of the movie is the April/November not-quite-romance but not-quite-friendship between the characters. It was interesting. As I get older I can see the appeal of socially hanging out with someone much younger than me, not for lust but just to remember and reconnect with that kind of youthful energy and potential. Of course if the person you are hanging out with is a beautiful woman and you're in an unhappy marriage it might cause problems. I do think Bob ends up sleeping with the singer as a sort of outlet for his lustful feelings for Charlotte, and that he's not respectable. I think that's lousy behavior. I don't think Lost in Translation is a great movie, or even a particularly good one. I guess I would compare it to a song I didn't like much that had one killer riff I enjoyed, which was the idea of two lonely people who had become lost in a bunch of different ways (their own lives, a foreign city, their own feelings) sharing a brief connection. I found that to be authentic. The rest? Eh...
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Mar 6, 2020 01:03
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Scudworth posted:Do you only enjoy movies where the characters are likable, acting logically, and doing things you agree with? "I would never be bored in Tokyo so gently caress these characters!" is the strangest critique. No, I just lack the ability to enjoy this particular movie because I find the characters to be unlikable. I can absolutely relate to the ennui of constant travel, which I stated. I just find both of their actions as inappropriate considering they are two married people. It sort of breaks the film for me.
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Mar 6, 2020 09:16
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The_Continental posted:No, I just lack the ability to enjoy this particular movie because I find the characters to be unlikable. I can absolutely relate to the ennui of constant travel, which I stated. I just find both of their actions as inappropriate considering they are two married people. It sort of breaks the film for me. I'm wondering how old you are, because as the decades go by your definitely going to have married friends who cheat. It's just a depressingly common thing, two guys I know who I never thought would do that poo poo, did that poo poo. Both of them were very unhappy in their marriage at the time. It just seems like one of those human things that some people can't resist...like how it's easy for some people to quit smoking (my wife) but others just can't do it (her best friend).
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Mar 6, 2020 17:36
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The_Continental posted:No, I just lack the ability to enjoy this particular movie because I find the characters to be unlikable. I can absolutely relate to the ennui of constant travel, which I stated. I just find both of their actions as inappropriate considering they are two married people. It sort of breaks the film for me. Boy do I have some bad news for you about movies.
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Mar 6, 2020 18:17
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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:I'm wondering how old you are, because as the decades go by your definitely going to have married friends who cheat. It's just a depressingly common thing, two guys I know who I never thought would do that poo poo, did that poo poo. Both of them were very unhappy in their marriage at the time. It just seems like one of those human things that some people can't resist...like how it's easy for some people to quit smoking (my wife) but others just can't do it (her best friend). I'm sorry your friends marriages didn't work out. I'm well into my 30s and am not so naive to think that people don't cheat on their spouses. That's not really it for me. I just think that this film is held in a higher regard than it deserves when it revolves around two selfish depressives who retreat into themselves and cling to the familiar. I understand that's the point. But the movie attempts to create these beautiful pure moments between the two leads and none of them really land for me because I don't sympathize with either of them. If you remove that element then its just a depressed slog through Toyko. It has some human moments, but in my assertion the characters only really get a pass because they are 1. Scarlett Johannsen, and 2. Bill Murray. If you recast it with like Shelly Duvall and Michael Keaton it wouldn't have a 95% on RT.
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Mar 7, 2020 01:35
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It’s easily in my top 5 movies of all time. It’s nearly perfection. The story is ultra relatable feeling lost in foreign countries. And finding something, anything to connect with. I am going to Japan for 2 weeks in September this year so I cannot wait to visit some of the spots.
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Mar 7, 2020 19:17
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Apropos of nothing, but the soundtrack is excellent and holds up pretty well.
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Mar 7, 2020 20:28
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Vintersorg posted:It’s easily in my top 5 movies of all time. It’s nearly perfection. The story is ultra relatable feeling lost in foreign countries. And finding something, anything to connect with. The bar in the hotel is open to the public, the trip up goes past some crazy glitzy poo poo and the view is awesome. I'd just stick to local beer instead of the twenty dollar lost in translation themed cocktail they have though
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Mar 7, 2020 20:29
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BiggestBatman posted:The bar in the hotel is open to the public, the trip up goes past some crazy glitzy poo poo and the view is awesome. I'd just stick to local beer instead of the twenty dollar lost in translation themed cocktail they have though What's the cocktail? In the movie all they drink are a vodka tonic and Suntory whisky. JnnyThndrs posted:Apropos of nothing, but the soundtrack is excellent and holds up pretty well. I like it too. I'm not even that big of a fan of Air or Jesus and Mary Chain but they fit the movie really well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0SVd_Q5wIg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=470HnRobKLc Stare-Out fucked around with this message at 21:08 on Mar 7, 2020 |
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Mar 7, 2020 20:58
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The soundtrack turned me onto My Bloody Valentine and I was lucky enough to see em in Minneapolis for a road trip. I then had my ears blown out and my body tumbled by the wall of sound finale.
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Mar 7, 2020 21:04
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Stare-Out posted:What's the cocktail? In the movie all they drink are a vodka tonic and Suntory whisky. It's very cutely called the L.i.T., and it was very orange
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Mar 7, 2020 23:01
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BiggestBatman posted:It's very cutely called the L.i.T., and it was very orange I'm almost tempted to try it if I'm ever there.
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Mar 7, 2020 23:06
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Yeah, Bob and Charlotte are far from perfect. But the film isn't meant to be a moral manual for living as an expat. Everything they felt was so well-portrayed and relatable to me having briefly lived in Asia, the good and bad. The desire to find something in common with other foreigners, the tendency to treat the local culture as wallpaper and revel in its most alien aspects, the ennui of an unsatisfying yet privileged lifestyle that Lost In Translation conveys are what I love about the film.
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Mar 8, 2020 00:53
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I've realized that watching Lost in Translation for me is a lot like reading a stereotypical New Yorker short story, which may explain my aversion. It's that privileged ennui that I just don't feel mines anything interesting or plays with the form enough to grab me. It may be technically well done but it doesn't feel revelatory, more like privileged white artists "writing what they know" and treating it as a great understanding when really it's the same poo poo our arts have been mining for ages and there are so many more interesting, less retreaded things to enjoy, especially with the accessibility of minority and international film voices now.
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Mar 8, 2020 07:59
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It's just kind of okay. It was especially frustrating because I'd watched The Virgin Suicides first and that remains the only really excellent movie she's directed, though Bling Ring was fine enough.
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Mar 8, 2020 08:52
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i'm not sure if always portraying privileged people as happy, fulfilled, and morally upstanding people who fully understand and actualize the vast potential society has given them would be anything but weird capitalist propaganda. the protagonists aren't even capable of enjoying their privilege even if they were to happen to understand it. that's just honesty, where you seem to want a lie. also it should be noted that most of your criticisms apply pretty straightforwardly to bob segers 'turn the page.' Hodgepodge fucked around with this message at 09:13 on Mar 8, 2020 |
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Mar 8, 2020 09:08
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Hodgepodge posted:i'm not sure if always portraying privileged people as happy, fulfilled, and morally upstanding people who fully understand and actualize the vast potential society has given them would be anything but weird capitalist propaganda. the protagonists aren't even capable of enjoying their privilege even if they were to happen to understand it. that's just honesty, where you seem to want a lie. The correction to a privileged ennui treatment is not an enjoying capitalism movie, it's anything that examines something more than an individualized hollowness and starving for connection with novelty or depth. It's the familiarity and roteness of the detachment that rob it of some of its charm.
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Mar 8, 2020 15:45
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I saw lost in translation a long time ago and I don't remember anything about it. I don't remember feeling anything for the film or the characters. I don't particularly like or dislike Murray or Johannsen in general. The film is just a void in my memory. The one thing I will say is that over the years I've developed a visceral aversion to love stories featuring older men and very young women. Just instinctively fills my stomach with bile. So I probably won't be returning to this film any time soon.
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Mar 9, 2020 02:12
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Hodgepodge posted:i'm not sure if always portraying privileged people as happy, fulfilled, and morally upstanding people who fully understand and actualize the vast potential society has given them would be anything but weird capitalist propaganda. the protagonists aren't even capable of enjoying their privilege even if they were to happen to understand it. that's just honesty, where you seem to want a lie. I'm not asking that the movie be changed, simply offering a criticism of a nearly universally lauded work. I'm looking at the film in its current state. What you're describing sounds like "Sex and The City: The Girls Take Tokyo". This is purely criticism, and I'm not going to say what I would've done differently, as I'm not a filmmaker. Its important to note: I'm not asking for the characters to be thrilled by Tokyo. I'm saying that their inability to do so, among other things, makes them unlikable in my eyes. I think that the comparison to "turn the page" is pretty astute. It's the quintessential road song. The life of a wildly famous touring musician seems like an enviable one from the outside, but the monotony of road work is actually pretty soul crushing. Its a great comparison My issue with road songs is that they are often self indulgent and boringly introspective, just like this film.
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Mar 9, 2020 02:38
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The Clowner posted:I saw lost in translation a long time ago and I don't remember anything about it. I don't remember feeling anything for the film or the characters. I don't particularly like or dislike Murray or Johannsen in general. The film is just a void in my memory. good news it's not a love story
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Mar 9, 2020 03:19
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Segue posted:I've realized that watching Lost in Translation for me is a lot like reading a stereotypical New Yorker short story, which may explain my aversion. And I'm a working class Midwesterner and I still find the characters interesting. Is it not enough to say you just don't like a movie?
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Mar 9, 2020 07:48
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Red Ryder posted:And I'm a working class Midwesterner and I still find the characters interesting. Is it not enough to say you just don't like a movie? I'm trying to analyze why I don't like it, since a contextless reason isn't great for discussion. I tend to have an aversion to those sorts of stories, and this sort of self-interrogation helps me understand the direction I'm coming from rather than a kneejerk distaste. I'm not trying to pass judgment on people who like the movie and identify with the characters. I like offbeat weirdness and novelty outside of my own personal experience in a lot of my favourite movies so that might be why this sort of story doesn't resonate with me the way it might for other people apprpaching from a different direction.
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Mar 9, 2020 22:05
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Instead of relentlessly making GBS threads over a title with nothing else to offer, I'm deciding to praise Ghost World for being the movie Lost in Translation tried to be. It came out two years earlier, also stars Scarlett Johansson along with Thora Birch and Steve Buscemi. The themes of social isolation, age-gap romances and *holds nose* ennui are similar but more impactful, I found. Trading Japan for bumfuck-any-small town USA trades thinly-veiled racism for honest cultural criticism, and dips a toe into that teenage angst "Catcher in the Rye" reservoir too. I found both sides more of the romance relatable as well. I've known characters like those in Ghost World my whole life, they are real to me while the two travelers in LoT feel like fickle tourists.
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Mar 9, 2020 22:45
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