Lost In Translation (HD-DVD)
Picture:
B Sound: B- Extras: C+ Film: B
Sofia
Coppola has become an important film director quickly, staring with the
ever-stunning Virgin Suicides, which
begins to form a trilogy of the representation of womanhood in a very cinematic
way. In between that film and the
controversial Marie Antoinette,
there is Lost In Translation, the
rightly acclaimed comedy drama about a veteran actor (Bill Murray in one of the
best performances of his career, followed closely by another one in Jim
Jarmusch’s also-remarkable Broken
Flowers, reviewed elsewhere on this site) Bob Harris, traveling to Japan
for a supposedly easy, but high paying advertisement job.
Unfortunately,
he has to contend with a would-be genius director who he cannot talk with and
meets Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) at his hotel, who happens to be there
because her husband (Giovanni Ribisi) is also there for business. However, Bob finds himself more interested in
her than the slick new drink he is promoting and they both find themselves
doing soul searching among those lost in the gilded cage of Tokyo’s glitzy
success.
Japan and
its people also become stars of the film, yet it is territory Murray is used to
as one of the first stars to knowingly, actively communicate and make contact
with anyone and all persons non-white openly in the mainstream, when this was
constantly attacked in the open as one of the greatest of all the
counter-culture stars of the 1970s. Ribisi
underplays his work like no on e since Gene Hackman and is a crucial character
in this film, though it would not seem it.
As for Johansson, it is a very sexy yet smart role with an opening shot
that subverts Jean-Luc Godard like nothing since The Cranberries’ brilliant
Music Video for Linger.
If you
can watch this and be bored, you are missing out on everything. This is one of the most purely cinematic
exercises in U.S. feature filmmaking in the last ten years and rightly received
all the accolades and awards bestowed upon it.
Then there is Sophia Coppola, quietly breaking ground no other female
writer/director ever has. Lost In Translation still has not found
its widest audience and I hope this HD-DVD helps that cause, since it is an
amazing film that is a must-see for all serious movie fans.
The 1080p
1.85 X 1 VC-1 digital High Definition image was shot with very clever
stylistics by Lance Accord, who has been a Director of Photography on some key
Music Videos and at his best is an amazing cinematographer. Note the way color is shown. The influence of Michaelangelo Antonioni’s
work, especially Zabriskie Point
(1970) as Japan becomes another America where the consumerism and its culture
of oversized advertising dwarf those who exist in it. Think of the contrast to Murray’s character
in this respect.
The Dolby
Digital Plus 5.1 mix is not better or worse than the standard DVD’s DTS mix not
included here. Even with Kevin Shields’
good score, this is a quiet film in important parts where the visuals do the
talking. The sound is of exceptional
character, thought out thoroughly if you listen closely. Extras include deleted scenes, trailers, a
behind the scenes featurette and on-camera Coppola and Murray interviews.
- Nicholas Sheffo
