Lost in Translation
                                      
Director: Sofia Coppola
Year: 2003
Rating: 7.0
It seemed appropriate to follow the six-part TV show James May: Our Man in Japan with a film about foreigners in Tokyo. As with Our Man, the cultural aspects of the film are very one-sided towards the off-beat and strange - whether this is always done for entertainment purposes or is more a manifestation of our innate ability to look down on all cultures not ours. Aren't they a funny people. When this was released in 2003 it generally received glowing reviews and awards all over. It is in reality a small insular film of ships mooring up next to one another in a fog, but it had the name of Coppola behind it - Sofia as director/writer, Francis as producer. And it is a lovely film, but we know by now that few things can stand up to time and changing attitudes and certainly criticisms have slowly crept into modern readings of the film. Me-too definitely gave the age and status differential between our two protagonists a sour look (Johansson was 17 at the time, Murray was 53) and making fun of Japanese English accents has not grown well in our culture - surprised that Sofia would go there. It is as old as the Talkies.



But what Sofia gets just right is the sense of alienation, isolation and loneliness in this situation. And the killer. Jet Lag. Being particular to jet lag, this aspect really struck home with me. In the old days. I often traveled to Asia from America - whether Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore or Bangkok - and jet lag always hits me like a Mike Tyson punch. Your entire body - every part of it aches - feels exhausted and you lie down thinking you will sleep like an angel. You want it so badly. You can smell sleep in the air. And it won't come. You will lie there staring about you begging for sleep to come. Making deals with the devil. You feel real pain. And it just doesn't come. You are close but your brain won't turn that final key to sleep. If it does, it will be fitful and short. Eventually, you will get up and roam the hotel, a little nervous about going outside of its comfort zone in a strange land and strange language. You are adrift. This can go on for days. I sadly never met a Scarlett Johansson in my travels, but I would get to recognize fellow insomniacs sitting in the lounge or hotel restaurant. All of us looking like death warmed over. Extras in a George Romero film.



Shot in almost fitful scenes that often lead nowhere, have little purpose, end unexpectedly - a lot like one's jet lagged sleep. In the film these two people inevitably meet - Bob Harris (Bill Murray) is a well-known movie actor perhaps past his prime who has come to Tokyo to film a Suntory commercial - Suntory Time - leaving a marriage with cracks in it back home. You generally like his character - at home in his skin and his stardom but well-aware of how shallow it all is. Charlotte (Johansson) is a recent graduate from an Ivy League school and has accompanied her photographer husband who is working. He is gone much of the time or sleeping. She can't, so she wanders and immediately the two of them recognize each other as kindred souls. Bored, lonely, unable to sleep and they pay attention to one another. She is seductive without even knowing it. They start hanging out - going out - often with little to say to one another but its company they want. The relationship is basically innocent - he is nearly a mentor of life  - parsing out bon mots and nuggets of married wisdom - and yet at the same time romantic. It doesn't go where you might expect - or where a male director might have - just a small interlude in their lives that filled the time and helped them make it through the brain fog of travel and loneliness.  It's Tokyo Time.



Graham Parker

"I dreamed headlong collisions in jet lag panavisions

I shouted sayonara it didn't mean goodbye

But lovers turn to posers show up in film exposures

Just like in travel brochures

Discovering Japan

Discovering Japan"