Surreal Story Brilliantly Set In Japan

Rating: 9/10 (18 February 2004)

This is a good movie from a new movie maker who is bound to be with us for a while to come. It shows great maturity at a young age on the part of Sofia Coppola. I can understand why many people found it off putting, but I respectfully do not agree. It isn't a comedy...it's a life drama. I love the fact that it's set in Tokyo. From personal experience I can attest to the unnerving loneliness Americans feel when confronted with the foreignness which is Japan. I don't feel this movie is disrespectful of the Japanese mind set, just very surreal...which is key to the story. Americans in Japan are referred to as Gaijin, a shortened form of "Gaikokujin" or foreign-country-person. This is not necessarily negative. It's just a fact. Our cultures are so different that the best we do for each other is `borrow' ideas. We can never become the other and this is a good thing! That aside. The Japan setting was essential for the characters to come to their individual awakenings. Their very `otherness' facilitates their growth toward self knowledge. Most movies would have these two become lovers, but love is not the answer here...self awareness seems to be what is the core of this movie. What better place to "know thyself" than in a foreign country.

Curiously enough this movie put me in mind of some early films from Japanese film makers I admire...especially, Ozu, Kurosawa, and Kenji Mizoguchi. It's almost a Japanese story in a way. It doesn't really have a conclusion, nor does it have a formal beginning...it's esoteric and very subtle. The environment is used to tell the story of aloneness...so many scenes of the solitary hotel rooms, the pathetic bar with it's American music, and the back drop of the high rises with mazed cars on twisted streets. I think it was brilliant to place this in Tokyo, the most nondescript city in Japan. For all it's beauty...it's so big and so impersonal, so desolate if you don't belong. Stark really. Such a keen eye for detail here. Perfect setting for two individuals to discover who they might be and what they might want. Yes, it's slow but so is life. I am looking forward to what else Sofia Coppola has up her talented little sleeves.