So, so beautiful...

Rating: 10/10 (25 January 2004)

Sofia Coppola's latest movie, LOST IN TRANSLATION, is an astonishing piece of sublime film-making. There is not one thing that is left behind in detriment of something else. Everything works in perfection, from the cast to the editing. Ultimately, this movie is a great lesson of film-making. It magnifies the importance of such things as musical score, songs and chosen locations. Not everything is storytelling in cinema; visual composition and music are also utterly important. LOST IN TRANSLATION is the most remarkable example of that. The city of Tokyo, colorful and technologically advanced, is as important as the characters themselves, or the story, and grants supremacy to this wonderful film. The same is valid for the superb score and carefully picked up songs. I could go on talking about cinematography, costume design, etc.
I found the chemistry between the dry, ironic Bill Murray and the sweet, innocent Scarlett Johansson just fabulous. Murray couldn't be a better choice to play the man lost in his life, alienated from the mundane realities of modern times; a man who eventually have learned to accept life's small frustrations and a loveless long-time marriage without carrying a burden. Johansson, on the other hand, has to be the sexiest actress of her generation. Her eyes can have the deepest, touching look. She glows sweetness and innocence from her entire body and she couldn't also be a better choice to play the young, married girl already `lost' in life but who still has some hope.
Sofia's approach to the main characters' relationship is extremely subtle. This is not a movie about a one-night-stand between two people who meet in a foreign country hotel. It is a movie about two people who meet and the things that are left unsaid. Eventually, it's also a movie about the clash of different cultures but ultimately, this is a movie about a relationship between two lost and lonely people. The city of Tokyo becomes the personification of alienation, thus allowing both characters to be themselves; they don't try to impress each other. The consequence is a natural, honest, deprived of second intentions relationship; a relationship where both people try to find comfort, being surrounded by a strange environment.
LOST IN TRANSLATION has beauty written all over the place. The movie becomes magical and the bitter sweetness of its tone is what makes it so powerful. Unlike the dozens of Hollywood films we watch during the year, here not everything needs to be explained, not everything needs to be verbalized. The chemistry, the looks, the touches, the expressions speak for themselves and what is not said is agonizingly powerful. After THE VIRGIN SUICIDES, with this movie Sofia Coppola defines herself without a shadow of doubt as a sensitive filmmaker who, in a subtle yet very efficient way, cares about the complexity of human relationships and understands the potential of cinema as a way to evoke deep emotions.