I lit some incense, cracked open a cider, popped some Pringles, and put in the Lost in Translation DVD. Friday night gets real exciting around these parts.
Like I said, this year will hopefully see me re-watching a lot of the DVDs I own. I've probably only seen Lost in Translation a couple times since the theatre. It was due for a refresh. Glad I put it on. It's still fucking excellent.
The tension is still there. Holy shit. Where to begin? Let's start with the opening scene of Scarlett Johansson's almost naked ass taking up the whole screen. You've got me hook, line and sinker. Amazingly, the film gets even better from there. I don't know how many times I turned to my cats and talked to them in disbelief at how amazing Scarlett looks throughout the film. The cats didn't care. The crazy part is Scarlett was 19 back then and only got better looking as time went on. But this isn't really relevant, it just needed to be stated.
The tension in the film is more important. Sophia Coppola got inside the mind of a man like no one else. Murray's acting, Sophia's script. It's a perfect marriage. This film should be in a time-capsule. We should send it to aliens to explain being a man. It's a phenomenal distillation of alienation and manhood.
The cinematography is killer. The cold neon lights. The warm chiaroscuro. The DP does everything right. The mood is always perfect. The lighting always tells a story. Loved it.
I believe Coppola said she was inspired by In the Mood For Love in an interview. The themes and situations are pretty similar. This is essentially a westernized abstraction/adaptation of ITMFL.
The soundtrack has literally been in constant rotation for the last ten years on my iPod.
The thing about Lost in Translation is that you connect with Bill's character so immediately. You're a participant in the movie. You never feel comfortable and always feel like you're far from home. Yet there's a weird relief in the isolation.
Awesome movie. Brilliant achievement for Sophia Coppola's second film. Murray's best film.
I love this film as well. Films like this I only watch every couple of years because I don't want to loose the feeling of what it was like when I first saw them. Like a really nice bottle of scotch, I save movies like this for special occasions. But oh how the mighty have fallen! She hasn't done anything worth watching again since. Have you seen Somewhere? I'd rather watch your cats, watch you, watch a movie.
ReplyDeleteShe did Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Match Point and Girl with a Pearl Earring. All good, but nothing close to Lost in Translation. Match Point ruled, but it wasn't because of Scarlett. She's in Hitchcock, which I'll add to my Netflix queue. It looked kinda crap but I have to see it for obvious reasons.
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