How Perfect Can a Movie Be?

Rating: 10/10 (21 March 2007)

To answer the question, see Lost In Translation.
A first time outing for a director with a good gene pool, Lost... is an astounding film. I have seen films at the cinema and loved them, then rented them to see again at home and realized that love at first sight was as bad in films at is can be in life. This film, however, stands up and more. Seeing it again this week I wondered why I had not been on the street proselytizing for Ms. Coppola's film.
The cast is perfect. Nobody can do hangdog like Bill Murray. His benign disapproval is sweet and withering at the same time. His ability to denote sageness with his minimalist mugging is art. When Bill Murray does getting tired, your own bones ache, your head gets heavy, and you yearn for just a little peaceful sleep. While part of the talent may be a happenstance based on physiology, whatever it is I vote yes.
Johansson is not a woman of vast range...or perhaps only not a good judge of parts to take...but she is absolutely tuning fork right for this role. A little too ripe of mouth is just right, so again we are talking physiology. And there is a sweetness that she brings to her mid-western desire for this much older man that really does say comme ci, comme ca. Her maturity of character here is very well played. From a male point of view, this fantasy woman would be the perfect tryst, of course.
Which bring us to the script that is witty and intelligent, and does not make any major statements on moral subjects. It plays like life. Though that life is certainly special for our whisky advertising man and not so bad for the Johansson figure married to an oaf with some sort of salable talent and the awkwardness of just the man he is.
Every shot in the film is so good that you wonder how this came about. Ditto editing. Ditto light and music choices. Ditto the social cultural stuff. Japan is strange to us, though the "artiste" nonsense is the same everywhere.
Movies don't often get made this well. Let's be quietly grateful.