Lost in Translation
Sofia Coppola has, with two elegant movies, proved herself a talented director with a keen eye for interior life. She's also got great ears. ForLost in Translation, the story of a May-December friendship in Tokyo between two displaced Americans, the score is a tonic for jetlag. Coppola prescribes a dose of shoegazer pop, fromMy Bloody Valentine's chiming "Sometimes" toJesus & Mary Chain's fuzzed-out "Just Like Honey." The music nails the hazy conscious state of actors Bill Murray (as a movie star with a midlife crisis) and Scarlet Johansson (as an emotionally marooned twenty-something). It also provides a safe, warm envelope in which they can enact their overseas adventures. Working with producer Brian Reitzell, whose bandAirscored her previousVirgin Suicides, Coppola lured Valentine's Kevin Shields into providing several slices of dreamy indie-rock and sonic wallpaper, as stylish as it is formless. There's a welcome bit of Japanese goofiness, a funhouse-mirror reflection of U.S. folk-rock courtesy of early-1970s bandHappy End. And a "hidden" track provides the audio of Murray, in the film, doing his sleepy karaoke version ofRoxy Music's "More Than This."--Marc Weidenbaum