Lost in Translation
We went to see Lost in Translation a couple of days ago. I really like Bill Murray (I can’t recall having seen him give a bad performance, even in a bad film), and Scarlett Johansson is also a fantastic, low key actress (she was superb in Ghost World—one of my favourite films of the past few years).
Sofia Coppola did a great job with this film; it’s very funny, tender, beautifully shot and rather moving in places. But I have seen some reviews which question her reliance on some rather dodgy stereotypes of Japan and Japanese people for the humour. It’s true that the film gets close to being insulting in places, but I think that her intention was to play up the characters’ feelings of culture shock and general bewilderment with what was going on, and in this sense, it worked very well. I’m not as well-travelled as some people, but I instantly recognised that feeling of being completely at sea in a different culture, and deeply lonely as a result.
