kevinmanf

It is not easy to talk about "Lost in Translation". Sofia Coppola's second film as a director is in part about things we never talk about. While its two protagonists try to find mutual solace in each other, their silence is as expressive as their words. This is a film that believes that an individual can have a valuable relationship with someone else without becoming part of that person's life. At 19 years of age, I am not married but I can understand pretty well that it is easier for a stranger with whom you share a moment in the bar or corridor to understand your problems better than your husband or wife. Here is an extract from Roger Ebert's great review of the film: "We all need to talk about metaphysics, but those who know us well want details and specifics; strangers allow us to operate more vaguely on a cosmic scale. When the talk occurs between two people who could plausibly have sex together, it gathers a special charge: you can only say "I feel like I've known you for years" to someone you have not known for years."

In this marvellous story, the two lonely individuals that merge the illusions of what they have and what they could have are two Americans. The emotional refuge, Tokyo. We have Bob Harris (Bill Murray), and actor in his fifties who was once a star, and is now supplementing his incomes with the recording of a whisky commercial. On the other side of the telephone, a frightening reality: his wife, his sons, and the mission of choosing the right material for heaven knows what part of the house. When we consider Bob's situation, we realise that Lost in Translation is also a meditation on the misery of fame. Certainly fame has great (perhaps greater than disadvantages) advantages but then there are the obligations, the expectations...

We also have Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson), a woman in her twenties who is accompanying her husband, a photographer addicted to work, on a business trip. But it could said it is as if she is alone anyway. Her world, just like Bob's, is reduced to strange days in the bedroom, the corridors, the hotel's swimming pool, and the bar, the perfect destination for victims of sleeplessness and wounded soul. The bar is the place Bob and Charlotte meet for the first time. They talk, little, but just enough. Once their dislike for parts of their lives are established, they begin sharing times that feel dead to be able to feel alive.

Bob and Charlotte are souls in transition for whom, surrounded and confused by exotic rituals, and a different language, allows them a moment to lose their identities. Both characters provoke similar feelings form different experiences. There are no kisses or crazy nights between them, but only a shared intimacy in which a night out, a walk in the streets, a session of karaoke becomes a powerful expression of their affection an complicity. The relationship we all await only happens in our minds and the protagonists, whom we are not allowed to know everything they say and desire. Tokyo metaphorically speaking is the third character in the film. The bright colours, the noise of the city...just everything evokes the various spiritual awakenings of the characters.

It ends on a perfect note leaving the relationship of the characters undecided. A rare gem in modern day cinema.

Joel Schumacher's The Phone Booth is an entertaining roller coaster ride, a fast paced thriller loaded with morals, some plausible others far fetched.

Collin Farell as Stu Shephard is the main character in a film that is practically set on one scenario: a phone booth, the last one in Manhattan. In the world of public relationships, business, change of credit cards, you name it, a man like Shephard is the king. He represents the inter-medium between half truths and public lies. He is a man without compassion, able to not pay his colleagues, lie at any price and sell his soul to the devil of public relationships. He is the perfect guy to threaten for truth He removes his marriage ring for a couple of minutes very mid day from the same booth to talk to his young (Katie Holmes) woman who is aspiring to be an actress, giving her false hopes about becoming a star. But someone seems to be aware of Shephard's ways. This guy is cold minded, capable of putting into great difficulties a man with a growing feeling of guilt, a fact perhaps overly underlined by Larry Cohen's screenplay. The phone booth of New York rings. Somebody must pick up the phone and Shephard is to close to ignore it. The guy behind the phone is the sniper, and he wants Shephard to confess his sins or get shot.

The plot almost belongs to a short feature film but Schumacher does a great job of conserving the only scenario (with the exception of some scenes where we see the police) without ever being dull. This is partly due to the great verbal exchange between the victim and the sniper. The sniper's voice suggests a strong presence, a sadistic but mesmerizing tone. "Do you see the tourists with their video cameras, hoping the cops will shoot so that they sell the tape?", he says in one of the film's best moments. Collin Farell offers enough fast talk, gestures of fear and regret to bring his character to life, which is all the more compelling considering he is basically talking to a mouthpiece for the most part. The ever tightening camera work does a great job of increasingly adding to the tension.

With this film, I can see what Schumacher was trying to do: to criticise without pity a society filled with adultery, racism and hypocrites (everything Shephard represents) who do not see that they are the deciders of their own destinies. The film's weakest point is the sniper's motive which is closer to morality than the ethic of behaviour which united with some fancy words, reduces some of the film to some very basic moral objectives that even a five year old could understand. But as a whole, this is a film worth watching just to have a good time.