Just plain lost...

Rating: 3/10 (4 April 2004)

Disappointment doesn't begin to describe this film. Especially after hearing all the rave reviews.
My biggest complaint was that the story plodded along at an absolutely GLACIAL pace. No appreciable plot/character development after the first fifteen minutes. The story took way WAY too long to tell, and in the end there was hardly anything to tell at all.
In lieu of actual story pacing, though, was some very effective imagery. Many fine and varied shots illustrated the isolation the main characters felt, and especially how foreign other lands appear to us in midst of them. Often I was reminded of the combined wonder and slight unease I felt when I was overseas, experiencing new cultures.
But in the end, the story was too sparse, too slow. In fact, for me, there were but two significant moments in the entire film that had any meaning whatsoever. Worse still, after all my patient trudging through this trying, aimless "tale", waiting for something to happen to qualify it as a story, I was rewarded with a big let-down cop-out of an ending. I could not have been more disappointed.
Great imagery, very fine photography, but those qualities cannot begin to make up for this waiting game of a film. The fact that this time-waster garnered such praise makes me ashamed to be part of the American movie audience.
Seems every year, we as Americans are enthralled by the crappiest movies. Any film that goes nowhere is "deep," any story that means nothing is "abstract," any tale that takes forever to tell is "epic."
But then, contrast this film with the trash-heap of "blockbusters" Hollywood regularly turns out like "Fast and Furious," "Legally Blonde," or any number of inane action/chick-flick movies and their improbable sequels, and "Lost in Translation" becomes art-house genius.
Come on, America! Aren't we more intelligent than this? No wonder the rest of the world hates our guts! We deserve it!
Let's get our brains out of neutral, folks.