A true love story: and the protagonists do NOT end up in bed!

Rating: 8/10 (2 June 2009)

After having seen Marie Antoinette and the Virgin Suicides, I came, as a result of a natural process, to see Lost in Translation, and I was so glad to find that same delicate, refined, and intelligent touch I had so much appreciated. Lost in translation is a movie, written and directed (let's not forget it) by a young director, capable of offering, despite her young age, intelligent and unexpected food for thought. What certainly surprised me, was the choice to portray the true love story between Ben and Charlotte without the predictable ending-up in bed, which really appears something rare, used as we are to cliché scripts, where each love story makes us predict that sooner or later we will have to see some sex scene. The scene where the two soul-mates are fully clothed in bed, talking about life is simply marvelous, and the sincerity and honesty of their words, leading to a single touch of the foot, is truly great. The accent is posed on the true and deep communion between two delicate and akin souls, on their capability to share emotions, thoughts, and the apparently boring and slow pace is aimed at giving value to such delicacy. In the end, almost as a miracle, everything remains in a perfect limb of the possible, of the unlived: this is not to say that sex couldn't have played a significant role within their story, but to underline how most important and spiritually binding elements come first, and that sometimes those experiences not lived until the utmost, but left uncompleted are still deeper and more real than those completely fulfilled, as if fixed in a perfect limb of the feasible. I would recommend this movie to young people, who encounter love for the first time, but not only, to people who think of love only as an experience to be consumed, and are not able to live and feel love, to understand that intimacy comes from within, and that there can be more complicity in a single touch or glance than in a sexual encounter. The male public will be maybe a little disappointed, but it's nice to see a fresh and natural Scarlett Johanson not in nude scenes, and appreciate her as a good convincing actress, Bill Murray delivers a very good and authentic performance. Eventually, a sad movie, but also rich in ironical and funny moments. Really worth seeing.