Lost In Translation

Strangers in a strange land...always a good theme, sometimes a good movie...but rarely a great one! The thing with great movies is that either one totally loves it or one totally hates it... 15 mins into this movie, you know whether you like it or you don't...

The pace of this movie is kind of slow... but that also is the beauty of it... its the experience, the environment created by what is going on that makes the impact... its all about how sometimes, just sometimes the turbulence going on inside you is matched by what is happening around you... both the main characters, Bob (Bill Murray) and Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson), are going through some sort of a dilemma, a conflict which on the face of it can seem just like a mid life crisis or a marriage not going too great... but they both realize or come to realize that its more than that... its about finding peace with yourself and no matter at what stage in life one is, if one doesn't have the kind of security which comes with knowing what one want it can lead to many a sleepless nights...

Both Bob and Charlotte suffer from severe jet lag from the moment they land in Tokyo and can't get any sleep... its not just physical... I guess, when you are so far away from your home and friends where the daily routine and a sort of social (mis) interaction can make you block the agitation you feel go away, the absence of that can't make you run away from your thoughts... and this is what makes these two people drift towards each other... its easier to find someone who will listen to you, but very hard to find some one who will know and understand you more by what you don't say rather than what you do...

To me, Charlotte's character was definitely the more interesting one... she talks less, thinks more, the calm on the face hiding the disappointments and the cracking dreams perfectly... she's lovely... Scarlett Johansson couldn't have done a better job...she's perfect and very believable...the scene in which she discovers that Bob has slept with some one else and when they sit in the restaurant after that, she says so much with just her eyes, her face...this incidentally is one of the best scenes in the movie according to me... how she feels cheated and hurt even though they are not involved and not even in love... I think its about how he has broken the unsaid pact, the commonality between them of not fitting in, of them being able to connect because of being drifters... and then he goes ahead and does something which any one else would have done...

Not to take anything away from Bill Murray! It is said that he is one of the few very under rated actors and somewhere got typecast into unfunny comical characters... but is he good in this movie! He's troubled, sad, happy and yes, amazingly funny!

The movie has been criticized for being racist and for giving a very stereotypical view of the Japanese...well, I agree that does come out some times... but then almost all movies have a bias against foreigners... many many Indian movies also... and in this movie I believe the surroundings were a little dramatized just to bring out the contrast between it and the intuitive relationship that the two characters develop...

A very nice movie and if you like it the first time... one to be preserved and seen again and again...oh, and have always wondered what he whispers in her ear when he says goodbye in the end... Take care? Will meet you soon? Some words of wisdom???

"Cinema should make you forget you are sitting in a theater."

- Roman Polanski