strange trip

Rating: Null/10 (25 March 2004)

so i just finished watching 'lost in translation' & for me, this movie can only be described as strange. i guess the point of the movie was to kind of show you what it's like to be in a foreign place and not understand anything. none of the Japanese spoken in the movie is subtitled. so the viewer is just as 'lost' as the characters. unfortunately, i have been to Japan so all of the things that were 'weird' to the characters were just Japanese to me. Though I don't speak much Japanese, I understood a few things here and there. I think this movie portrays Americans pretty well tho in a way. Before I went to Japan (I went with a group in high school) we were warned about 'culture shock', I never felt this the entire time I was there. There were things that were different or unexpected and difficult at times with my weak Japanese, but at the same time I am a very accepting person and adaptable.
I have many different nationalities in my family including Black, Mexican, Japanese, and Filipino..and I study Chinese and their culture, so I kinda have to be accepting in order to get along with my family
***if you haven't seen the movie, maybe don't read this****
The thing that kinda bugged me about the characters, was that they never even really tried to learn about the culture. I never saw them getting any books or trying to arrange a tour guide...all which would have been easy to do in a big city such as Tokyo. Bill Murray's character was a famous actor, he could have easily had a translator accompany him on visits and stuff. But he didn't want to, and neither did the girl. I guess really now I think the movie wasn't about being lost in translation it was about being lost in life. These two people were lonely and lost and their connection was not only being White-Americans, it was also that they had problems in their marriages and weren't sure about their jobs. This movie is about two very depressed Americans in another country. There really was nothing happy in this movie at all. There were two sad people wallowing in their dispair.
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