Boredom captured on film

Rating: 10/10 (21 May 2008)

Nothing much happens in Lost in Translation. Consequently, Bob and Charlotte become bored, and do their best to keep occupied.
They would sleep if they could, but they can't. They could leave, but various things (such as each other) keep them where they are. They spend a fair bit of time staring at walls and discussing (without much insight) their current hang-ups and marital woes. They don't make an effort to understand the Japanese people, preferring to laugh at them instead, and none of their time is spent pursuing the things they claim to be interested in. Charlotte flips through the same magazines instead of reading Schopenhauer or trying to write, while Bob is 'getting paid 2 million dollars to endorse a whiskey, when (he) could be doing a play somewhere.' Their circumstantial relationship consists of not much more than a few meandering glances and a touch here and there, and the most action they get up to is singing at a karaoke bar and dodging BB-Gun bullets through the streets of Tokyo.
Coppola doesn't really seem to care whether audiences think Bob and Charlotte are likable or even sympathetic. She doesn't care if audiences are bored out of their minds watching two people be bored. The only thing she cares about is her vision, which as one user comments quite aptly, 'is the cinematic exercise in tedium for the sake of artistic expression, without tightening up.'
If this film still sounds appealing to you, go watch it now. If not, then don't.
My score tells you what I think, but I've always been a sucker for tedious character pieces where not much happens. Bob and Charlotte are two of my favourite people ever captured on film, and their lonely struggle against the reason for all human experience  boredom  sets them apart as people just like the rest of us, instead of characters who exist purely to tell a story. Currently among my favourite films of all-time alongside Taxi Driver, Before Sunset, and The Godfather: Part II.