'Lost In Translation' is one of the worst examples of style over substance I've seen in a long, long time.

Rating: Null/10 (31 May 2004)

To be honest I avoided watching 'Lost In Translation' when it was first released. I thought Sofia Coppola's 'The Virgin Suicides' was nice to look at, had some cool music, but was ultimately empty and pointless. I expected 'Lost In Translation' to be more of the same. After my first viewing this is exactly what I thought. There's some lovely visual images sure, and some wonderful music on the soundtrack. A cynic (who me?) could be forgiven for assuming that this is what you should expect to get when you hire a talented cinematographer (Lance Acord) to film on location in Tokyo, and employ a savvy musical director (former Redd Kross drummer Brian Reitzell) who knows his stuff (My Bloody Valentine, Peaches, Air, Rick James, Nick Lowe via Elvis Costello, The Jesus And Mary Chain). The combination of the music and the images is, I'll be the first to admit, frequently striking. I appreciated it aesthetically but it's something you'll frequently see in music videos, and dare I say it, TV commercials. Call me old fashioned, but when we're dealing with movies, aesthetics alone aren't enough for me. I like to either have an interesting story, or characters with depth, or some kind of insight into the human condition, or, as this IS a comedy, some big laughs. L.I.T. has none of these! Now look, Bill Murray is a cool dude, I agree, and Scarlett Johansson is very easy on the eye, but Coppola's script gives them very little to work with, so if I must blame someone, I must blame her. I watched the movie a second time to see if I was being fair to it. Now the second time, not only were the failings I saw the first time around magnified, something else happened. I began to really dislike these two characters. Bob Harris, a successful movie star, full of angst because he has to make a cheesy TV commercial for a couple of million? Middle class slacker Charlotte has such a tough life because she takes "mediocre" photos and hates her own writing? Please, some people actually have REAL problems! I felt the same way watching 'The Virgin Suicides', whose underlying message appeared to be, "boy, it's sure tough being a good looking girl". Both movies demonstrate the shallowness of Sofia Coppola's work. I don't feel any empathy for these people. Maybe a talented film maker could make that happen, but as it is I became more and more irritated by the movie. And the condescending attitude towards the Japanese didn't help things any. I found it interesting that when I watched the behind the scenes footage on the DVD, Coppola is shown surrounded by cool locals with good English skills, yet in her movie almost all the locals either can't speak English at all, or if they do they do they speak "Ingrish" ala Mickey Rooney in 'Breakfast At Tiffanys'. This really started to grate on me after a while. Japanese people and culture in this movie are only good for a few cheap laughs it seems, or as "interesting" background for our two spoiled, self-centered protagonists. 'Lost In Translation' is one of the worst examples of style over substance I've seen in a long, long time. Many film buffs are falling over themselves to hail this movie as some kind of masterpiece. They are mistaken. Watch a documentary on Japan while listening to 'Loveless', it's just as satisfying.