Another kind of escapism

Rating: 9/10 (24 January 2004)

I feel a bit uncomfortable watching films like this. That's because I'm wondering what my fellow moviegoers are making of it. You see, it's not typical Hollywood fare - no action, no jokes, no fairy-tale plot. In fact I'd label it a European movie, even though it was made by Americans in Japan. But even though Coppola makes no concessions I felt that the audience was won over.
The best one-word review I can come up with is "real". Coppola has gone for realism in a big way. The film is slow-paced with scenes where the characters do and say little, and lots of shots of Tokyo doing the stuff Tokyo does. So the escapism this film provides is only that of being other, normal lives in another, normal place. No surprises, not even at the end. Brave and great.
Some people have criticised the film for taking it out on the Japanese, but I don't think there's anything unrealistic about the leading characters' response to their environment. If that response is cruel, well most people's is, unless they're so PC they constantly hide their true emotions behind platitudes. The only criticism I make is that I'm not sure that a doctor would rabbit on in Japanese if they could see that the other person didn't understand.
Finally, Murray and Johannson are so good, they deserve to win many awards.