Films "like this" don't usually get American distribution

Rating: Null/10 (15 January 2004)

I sense a lot of confusion amongst a lot of the more stateside IMdb viewers on this film, and I'm assuming a lot of them aren't used to the precedent movies for it.
I'll agree with folks who appreciated this, even appreciated it a lot, but aren't going Oscar-night-ga-ga over it. I was struck by how much this reminded me of the more coherent works of Wim Wenders (compare with *Wings of Desire*, *Paris, Texas*, *Lisbon Story*). Like Wenders, this doesn't have a "plot" or key points really as such. *Lost In Translation* unfolds at the pace of natural life, not any Hollywood interpretation of it, which I suspect makes a lot of people feel accustomed to the latter like it's boring or even insufferable. Like Wenders, the cliched claim that "the locale is one of the stars of the movie" is made real, although never in a way you're hit over the head with it. Unlike Wenders, this film's territory is compacted into under two hours. :)
That's what makes *Lost in Translation* unique at all amongst movies "like this"--its economy. Sure, a lot of scenes don't cover a lot of plot-narrative ground, but they never stretch out to the point they wear out their welcome (a typical complaint against Wenders).
** OK, maybe few spoilers follow ***
A few scenes essential to what plot is there are a bit ingenious in that their interior is left out entirely--I'm thinking for example of the scene between Bill Murray's Bob Harris and the singer of the lounge band in the hotel--all we see is her saying "hello" to him at the bar, and there's an immediate cut to him lying in bed, waking up in that clear moment of morning-after-hangover regret, with the trite vocal refrains of "Midnight at the Oasis" coming from the bathroom where she's presumably showering up, just as Scarlett Johanssen's Charlotte is coming and knocking at his door. Brilliantly spartan, since didn't need any of the late-night pickup-and-sex scene to know what role this had in the overall picture.
In fact, even the *very crisply* written dialogue, what there is of it, has only five very brief points of revelatory climax: a) the moment after the late night karaoke binge where Charlotte softly puts her head on Bob's shoulder for a second, b) the late night between Bob and Scarlett where they're lying on the bed and finally have the courage to very briefly reveal their inner fears about where they are in their lives and marriages, c) the phone conversation between in-the-bath Bob and his wife in the US where he finally reveals the depth of his emptiness and she still fails to get it ("Bob, do I have to worry about you?"/"Only if you *want* to"--that's a *great* line) d) the scene after Charlotte discovers that Bob had a tryst with the "Midnight at the Oasis" lady, where she's burning him with barely-spoken recrimination at the restaurant, and e) the very end where Bob and Charlote part. I doubt that any of those interactions span more than 90 seconds, and yet they're the "key moments" in the movie, if there are such things to keep track of.
The only other really conciously pressed thematic element of *Lost in Translation* is the insight and clarity of the spare verbal interaction between Bob and Charlotte, as starkly contrasted to the tedious banality of what they have to share with every other character in the movie, including their life partners.
Overall, I won't say this is the greatest film of the year or a life-changing experience (I might apply the latter claim Wenders' *Wings of Desire*, but that's me), but this is a really really good movie with moments of greatness. It's remarkable it got the big-studio-American-Zoetrope release.
Finally, if nothing else, it saved me a lot of money, since the portrayal of Tokyo is so satisfying and credible, I really don't feel like I need to vacation there anytime soon. :)