A tale for outsiders, with a couple hiccups

Rating: 7/10 (22 December 2006)

After all the accolades have been done and gone for a year, I finally got around to watching this film. Suffice to say that I was pleasantly surprised by this mood/character piece by Sofia Coppola First of all, Lost In Translation has a lot more to do with the observational documentary aesthetic and storytelling than the regular fictional narrative that's common to Hollywood film, so if you want it looking for the standard formula for story, that is to say, if you're looking for a typical movie, you're going to be disappointed. This here is less about a traditional story and more about watching two people and developing an understanding of who they are, what they're dealing with and how they make a connection. But we get all this from the watching of them, rather than a clear narrative arc being presented to us (not to say that there isn't a story--but rather, it's a background for the characters).
That said, the film does an impressive job exploring how our two characters, lost and self-alienated, cope or fail to cope with their situation. They find each other in a foreign environment and make a connection despite their melancholy and find a means to enjoy their time in Tokyo. I was convinced by the leads' portrayals of their characters and participated in the characters' emotions. I like the floating aspect of the direction and the ease by which the atmosphere is captured is an improvement on Coppola's The Virgin Suicides, and although there are still a couple of less than inspired moments, the capturing of the image coordinated with the acting and setups are still memorable.
But, I have to say there were several times that I wanted to throw random objects at the screen because of lack of believability, including some of the "interacting with silly Japanese" setups that were fairly hard to believe--the humor is weak because it relies on prejudices that aren't informed. Although I understand the "looking at it through the eye of someone who doesn't want to, nor cares to understand" the contrast between very real characters and their empathy and the very unreal, often late-night-weekend-TV sketch comedy pieces leads to disconcerting conflict of tone in the film and has a touch of cultural arrogance.
But those moments are not as common as the better moments in the film. Which is good, because I very much liked the rest of the film. Maybe it's because I often feel like an outsider floating around this city of Los Angeles, but I, as the third party, made a connection with these two souls lost in Tokyo. And sometimes finding that connection makes all the difference when you're lost in translation. 8/10.