wayne-112 Reviews

Lost in Translation (2003)

Films "like this" don't usually get American distribution

[15 January 2004]

I sense a lot of confusion amongst a lot of the more stateside IMdb viewers on this film, and I'm assuming a lot of them aren't used to the precedent movies for it.

I'll agree with folks who appreciated this, even appreciated it a lot, but aren't going Oscar-night-ga-ga over it. I was struck by how much this reminded me of the more coherent works of Wim Wenders (compare with *Wings of Desire*, *Paris, Texas*, *Lisbon Story*). Like Wenders, this doesn't have a "plot" or key points really as such. *Lost In Translation* unfolds at the pace of natural life, not any Hollywood interpretation of it, which I suspect makes a lot of people feel accustomed to the latter like it's boring or even insufferable. Like Wenders, the cliched claim that "the locale is one of the stars of the movie" is made real, although never in a way you're hit over the head with it. Unlike Wenders, this film's territory is compacted into under two hours. :)

That's what makes *Lost in Translation* unique at all amongst movies "like this"--its economy. Sure, a lot of scenes don't cover a lot of plot-narrative ground, but they never stretch out to the point they wear out their welcome (a typical complaint against Wenders).

** OK, maybe few spoilers follow ***

A few scenes essential to what plot is there are a bit ingenious in that their interior is left out entirely--I'm thinking for example of the scene between Bill Murray's Bob Harris and the singer of the lounge band in the hotel--all we see is her saying "hello" to him at the bar, and there's an immediate cut to him lying in bed, waking up in that clear moment of morning-after-hangover regret, with the trite vocal refrains of "Midnight at the Oasis" coming from the bathroom where she's presumably showering up, just as Scarlett Johanssen's Charlotte is coming and knocking at his door. Brilliantly spartan, since didn't need any of the late-night pickup-and-sex scene to know what role this had in the overall picture.

In fact, even the *very crisply* written dialogue, what there is of it, has only five very brief points of revelatory climax: a) the moment after the late night karaoke binge where Charlotte softly puts her head on Bob's shoulder for a second, b) the late night between Bob and Scarlett where they're lying on the bed and finally have the courage to very briefly reveal their inner fears about where they are in their lives and marriages, c) the phone conversation between in-the-bath Bob and his wife in the US where he finally reveals the depth of his emptiness and she still fails to get it ("Bob, do I have to worry about you?"/"Only if you *want* to"--that's a *great* line) d) the scene after Charlotte discovers that Bob had a tryst with the "Midnight at the Oasis" lady, where she's burning him with barely-spoken recrimination at the restaurant, and e) the very end where Bob and Charlote part. I doubt that any of those interactions span more than 90 seconds, and yet they're the "key moments" in the movie, if there are such things to keep track of.

The only other really conciously pressed thematic element of *Lost in Translation* is the insight and clarity of the spare verbal interaction between Bob and Charlotte, as starkly contrasted to the tedious banality of what they have to share with every other character in the movie, including their life partners.

Overall, I won't say this is the greatest film of the year or a life-changing experience (I might apply the latter claim Wenders' *Wings of Desire*, but that's me), but this is a really really good movie with moments of greatness. It's remarkable it got the big-studio-American-Zoetrope release.

Finally, if nothing else, it saved me a lot of money, since the portrayal of Tokyo is so satisfying and credible, I really don't feel like I need to vacation there anytime soon. :)

Fearless (1993)

Touches places in the soul never dared to be reached before

[12 December 2003]

Other reviews I have read here do a great job of summarizing the plot and key elements of this film. I just want to reiterate, first, how incredible the cast is. Working in a plot that demands attention to and awareness of subtleties, *every* actor, on down to the smallest part, puts forth flawless performances, and are directed brilliantly. If I was John Turturro, I'd have calmed it down a little, but if he did that, he wouldn't be John Turturro. :)

Isabella Rossellini is given the strongest role of her career (I mean, in *Blue Velvet*, she was scorching and daring, but she was played as a bit of an archetype and dream figure, and not as a woman struggling through a life crisis in quite so identifiable a way). Rather than fall prey to playing her role as an insensitive wife who doesn't understand the extraordinary passage her husband is undergoing, she is given the chance to really be a hero in her own right. She could *never* understand--but she tries to--and gives extraordinary credibility in a role of struggling to give what she can as Jeff Bridges' Max Klein hurtles himself into his obsessive self-made universe from his ordeal and survival. When it's clear she can no longer do that, she becomes a noble warrior to fight for her own sanity and that of her son. The procession of her character is flawless and every moment feels right.

The interplay between Rossellini and Rosie Perez is played out with unexpected honesty, restraint and brilliance. Perez' Carla has her own parallel situation, with a husband who completely can't understand why she won't exploit the situation for all she can get in court (a great early small performance from Benecio Del Torro). He is, like Rossellini, troubled by the bizarre and nonobvious intimacy that has developed between his wife and Jeff Bridges, two people whose lives might never have ordinarily crossed. Perez is, as has been mentioned elsewhere here, devastating. Her grief over the loss of her son is sustained and utterly utterly credible.

This brings us to Jeff Bridges. Man, oh man, this is his career masterpiece performance--arguably the greatest leading acting role of the 1990's. He *gets* what writer Rafael Yglesias and Peter Weir are narrowly aiming for here, and it's something no other movie has approached that I've seen. It is--the instantaneous and seemingly lifelong bond that develops between those who have been through a life-changing crisis, and how that can completely absorb them to the exclusion of *everything* else in their lives. What sounds like a subtle point here is **nailed** by Yglesias and Weir, and I can't imagine another actor who could have gotten what that feels like. I know from personal experience--mine was nothing like a plane crash--but the phenomenon that this movie ventures to explore that I just described, which may seem like mostly bizarre behavior shifts in Bridges' character to those who haven't experienced what I'm talking about--is in fact as real as love, fear, or passion itself. What Bridges realizes in putting together Max Klein is that he's *utterly* lucid--he feels as though he sees things as clearly as he ever has in his life and *never* wants to let that clarity go to revert to a more "rational" way to confront the trauma he has gone through.

Others have mentioned the "why didn't this get bigger press" issue. The studio was quite nervous that this was an art house movie and didn't promote it as heavily as they might have. It actually did quite well at the box office initially and early advocacy for Bridges and Weir to get Oscars were definitely out in the review stream, but this had the misfortune of being released *just* before a little movie called *Schindler's List*, which summarily grabbed the cinematic spotlight and completely eclipsed everything else at the Oscars.

Director Peter Weir himself considers this his greatest work and was greatly stung by what he considered the slight it was given by Hollywood and the public. In many ways it has shaped a cynicism towards Hollywood he has had ever since, and it would be five years before he'd find it in himself to direct another film.