One of the few perfect films

Rating: 10/10 (14 January 2013)

Lost in Translation either works or it doesn't work for you - and for many people it's a bargain for somewhere in between. It can be seen as a drama, and in many venues it was billed as a comedy - but for a certain segment of the audience it is I believe a profoundly moving and devastating story about an impossible love, told with simplicity and attention to detail; and with such careful modulation that the ground shakes during it's final moments.
The criticism I've heard leveled at the film most often is that it dwells on the problems of the 'super rich', when the film isn't about that. The fact that these characters are from this background was the only way Coppola could tell this story in earnest; these characters are extensions of herself, and like it or not she was born into this kind of world. The purpose of the story isn't to evoke sympathy for the problems in these people's lives - rather, there's a universality to this idea that no matter where we are in this world, no matter how well things are going in our lives, we all have the ability to feel stranded. And no matter how stranded we feel in our lives, when the light of a human connection finds us it has the potential to illuminate our entire being.