February 2012 - Five Random Faves (Part 5)

Fave #5: Find yourself and never lose it with Lost in Translation!

Talk-shy in Tokyo (picture source)

Lost in Translation (2003) is one of La Baguette's favourite films of the last decade! It's as far from the typical full-on, effects-packed, all-singing all-dancing American blockbuster as can be. We're talking low brow, low budget American film, personal, timeless and almost European in its approach.

Not only has the Sofia Coppola feature film reached cult status but so has its title. The press, bloggers, Joe Bloggs and others have all adopted it as a catchphrase.

The trappings of daily communication, convention, social codes and relationships are stretched further and put to the test when you're plucked out of your comfortable Western surroundings and thrown into Japanese culture and way of life, carried out by a tide of human density, human emotions, innuendoes, misunderstandings, silences and long glances, surprised looks, blank stares, late-night jet-lagged errings and forced introspections.




Bob Harris (Bill Murray) and Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) are both American, yet they come from two different if not opposite walks of life. They face their own doubts and fears and solitude. They also meet up, they get lost together, they rejoin and they part.

This is a beautiful, intimate, chemistry-charged film. Neither smarmy, chick flick nor dramatic. It's a film about relationships, with number one, with the busy partner, with others. It's grand, yet awesomely personal at the same time. A delight on the box! We ♥ it!