ex-x-treme

105 Minutes, because the chills will continue even during the movie titles if you keep on listening to the music and thinking about what you have just watched. This movie is about feeling what this people go thru and feel. A lot (LOTS) of silent language, every little detail is well thought to connect to an open audience, and certainly Scarlett and Bill did an awesome job to translate into the silver screen their strong feelings. I read some comments that talk about "after marriage", I think this movie goes much beyond feelings once you are married and have kids. It's about life… your whole life. I can relate to some passages where thru the character actions there's strong stresses on enjoying the moment, and soon after that the futility of the moment itself once the joy fades… you feel that. It hits you in the guts! And then the next moment comes, and so on. And we are talking about extremely *simple* moments, not the typical emotional movie that tries to hit with deep stuff. The overall feeling while watching this movie is that you don't want the movie to end, the same thing the characters don't want their stay in Tokyo to finish, you can actually feel that. You can feel the pain they carry every time they come to grips with the realization that their time in Tokyo will be gone and they may never see each other for the rest of their life. The movie also clearly conveys the message that is not about the place, but the people that matters. First Bob Harris will show some indifference towards the place and Charlotte will show the typical curiosity of youth. Those feelings slowly translate into joy, love for the place even love for the food (I know, they didn't like Shabu Shabu because you have to cook it yourself :) and ultimate a metaphysical love for each other that can't be described with words. I will try to summarize the type of people who might enjoy this movie (if you don't fit in any description, you might enjoy it as well…who knows): 1) Got married and kept on thinking about the meaning of love, what's marital love, what's true love… kept on meditating on love in general and see yourself on that path for the rest of your life. 2) Got married and ever fear about loosing that connection to your other significant being (after all 50% of marriages in the US crumble at some point...) 3) Got kids and got the feeling suddenly you got to some extent "sidelined", something typical of today's society with the pressures that a career puts on the main financial provider of modern western families. 4) Ever felt Platonic Love, with the extreme joy and pain which it represents if it finally didn't get realized. 5) Ever traveled alone to foreign cultures and felt the loneliness feeling of being a complete foreigner (in all sense of the word). 6) Have the capacity to enjoy movies with simple themes well brought to the movie screen in terms of script, music, sound, editing, etc… probably 97% of critics who acclaimed this movie fit this description.

After I finished watching, I couldn't get enough of it; sadly I come to the realization that it will be extremely hard for any other producer/director to match Lost in Translation, even Sofia… sorry Sofia, you did too good, your bar is so high now!

I watched this movie roughly one year ago... I've watched at least four more times since then, every time enjoying as the first time. The synchronicity between the images and the soundtrack makes this movie an unforgettable real audiovisual experience; the editing is a masterpiece, with such a fast paced soundtrack from beginning to end, so well matched to the scenes, the editor deserves a huge amount of credit for this film. You MUST see this movie with good sound quality, and in a set where you can crank the volume up. This movie is a chance to absolutely disconnect from the real world for the duration of the film, and being drawn into this fictional "fixable" world, nothing outside will distract you, unless your house is burning. The acting is really good too; I'll say the acting is really balanced to don't overcast the whole movie. No actor in this movie acts "hard enough" to be the star. The only star here is the whole movie… And, on top of that… on top of this perfect film, not even a millisecond wasted in the full length of it, you will enjoy just seeing Lola run and run! Tom Tykwer couldn't pick better the "runner"!

I got to see this movie by chance after reading an interview to Cecilia Roth in La Nacion online newspaper. When asked for her favorite film, she mentioned "Un Lugar en el Mundo". This movie, as suggested in many places, it's as good (or better) as "La Historia Oficial", which is one of the best Argentine movies ever. Personally, I liked this one more. It's a very warm movie about the the relationships of the characters between themselves and with the place they inhabit. Certainly, the place to shoot it was chosen wisely. Argentinian pampa and Patagonia desert have a special appeal, very difficult to describe unless you visit them, some kind of special magic. The movie depicts also the strong gravitational effect that the Catholic Church has in Argentinian culture, mostly in the countryside. As you will see around the movie, besides the frequently shown green ford falcon, diesel train, horse carriage and old ambulance, the other constant are the gatherings in or around the church. A very strong recommendation if you liked "Un Lugar en el Mundo": "Historias Minimas". This is movie shares the same type of narrative it's about human relationships of a group of people in Puerto San Julian, an Atlantic town down south in Patagonia. The difference is that Un Lugar en el Mundo has a very heavy duty cast, all consummated actors and actresses. Historias Minimas only relatively known actor is Javier Lombardo, the rest are mostly first time plays.