Lends ordinary life a bit of poetry

Rating: Null/10 (24 May 2014)

I'd been warned about Lost in Translation. It is a fairly uneventful, and quite often direction-less film, with a script made up of ordinary utterances, sometimes barely audible, and situations which are vaguely amusing without being laugh-out-loud funny.
The actors are not called on to do anything overtly emotional or melodramatic. Instead they put in solid performances playing ordinary people displaying rather good comic timing.
Watching this film feels like floating along aimlessly for a while inside someone else's head. Each scene is interesting and fun to observe while not adding up to much on their own. Put together however they become something more than the sum of their parts.
The understatement of the final sequence is more moving than could ever be expected. It builds to it, as a summary rather than a climax, and leaves you charmed and hopeful and satisfied. Even the music seems to transform from shapeless sound to melodious song, finally making life-affirming sense of the cityscape so wonderfully depicted in the cinematography.
Lots of people love walking through a city with their headphones on. Perhaps it lends ordinary life a bit of poetry? Watching this film gives the same feeling. Enjoy!