I love RU-vidrs who live in Japan, but I sort of wish I could have experienced loneliness in Japan as it was before the advent of social media, with its illusion of familiarity. I see people tweeting from Japan who might as well be right around the corner because they haven't changed and diverged from the online persona they've been curating since early on.
I live in Japan. My Japanese friends - almost universally - strongly dislike this film. They feel it is nothing more than one stereotype after another and does not show Japan at all. It only shows a foreigners romanticized and fetishized version of what a foreigner wants Japan to be. To experience real Japan, they tell me, foreigners must spend time outside of the major cities. Tokyo is no more representative of Japan, than NYC is of America.
@@tdfrie that's the point. The two characters only stay for a while so they don't get the full experience and they get to romanticise the experience. This film doesn't want to some grand thing
"...so different than real life." - Sophia Coppola in *this" video I spent a dozen years of my real life working in Japan, and this is the only movie I truly hate. No Japanese person has a meaningful role, and the scene with the doctor is precisely the opposite of what would happen. Hollywood blabbers on a lot about "representation." How about throwing this kind of cash to a Japanese director so people can see something real? Instead of this nepo baby trash.
I’m Japanese and I still recommend people to watch this film when they ask me what Japan is like. None of the Ninja, samurai crap. This is the most accurate image of Japan. Love the music that goes with it too.
Curious, did you find this movie to be racist? As two people here have said to me about it being so. I don't think it is, but would like to hear your perspective
@@vjmtz I think Bob had moments of being irate but was burning out with the many advertising re-takes that was wearing on him and also other stresses. Really they aren't thinking of many things when they say it's all racist, like the mystique of being in such a modern and amazing city as Tokyo, the beautiful sharing the Japanese ladies gave Charlotte showing her how to arrange the flowers without speaking a word that to me was very moving. I think in the Shinto religion that is called "Feng Shui" a way or ordering your environment. Also that was beautiful the special place Charlot went I think in the traditional city of Kyoto, and that beautiful Japanese traditional wedding and when she tied some origami figure or prayer to that tree. Also, I've never seen a beautiful and unique wedding like that before! Charlot's friends too were so nice and how they without hardly a word enjoyed each other and as she and Bob left all their cares behind and were absorbed by the moment. I liked too when she was at that temple and the monks were chanting. I think there were moments of parodies like the comedian's show on TV Bob was in, the strip joint, and other more like short moments that I think was more a parody on Western modern world influence of commercialism so actually holding a mirror to the Western world and not Japan. I still hest that beautiful song when Charlot is sitting in the window gazing out at such an amazing world as Tokyo and Japan. I like the others songs too and the one I think is named, "Just Like Honey". Is there a soundtrack CD somewhere?
@@mwj5368I agree, and I think the racism comments aren't seeing the depth there, imo of course. And I do think the movie is definitely about how an amazing, beautiful place like Japan...a place many people world wide see with envy and fascination - you can be lonely, sad, and unhappy despite all that amazing culture and beauty, a place where some would say "how can you feel lonely in such a lively amazing place?". I assume you are talking about the song when she's going to Kyoto? That would be Air - Alone in Kyoto. Most of the soundtrack is done by a french band called Air, you will dig them. They also did the full soundtrack for The Virgin Suicides. A great movie Sophia Coppolla did before Lost in Translation. I highly suggest their music. The strip club scene song is by Peaches - Fuck The Pain Away. Last song at the end is The Jesus Mary Chain - Just Like Honey. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_in_Translation_(soundtrack)
@@vjmtz It’s a comedy on differences in cultures and customs. So sure, some people may find it offensive or off putting. I personally didn’t find it racist or offensive. I rather found it funny. :) At the end of the day, it’s a subjective matter.
I'm Japanese. I know some people don't like the way this movie portrays Japan. But I like this movie. Just because it's set in Japan, this movie portrays a universal theme of loneliness that people all over the world feel. Some people criticize that the Japanese in this movie don't play a meaningful role, but the two main characters are people who come to an unfamiliar foreign country on a trip and plan to return soon. It's natural that the local people they see on their travels become like the background of a stage set. The beautiful thing about this movie is that it expresses the two lonely souls coming into spiritual contact, healing, and the birth of hope. Scarlett Johansson is good, but Bill Murray is the best. There's nothing to criticize about the music either.
You can put 2 japaneses in New York and do the exact same movie. Nothing against one or the other nationality. Just the feeling to be alone in your world. I feel that way in my town. Maybe I would feel home elsewhere.
@@stonedoummaynardjame That's right. Humans are born alone, die alone, and live a journey called life. Sometimes we meet people, we are filled with happiness, then we part ways and are tormented by loneliness. But life is beautiful, and we are reminded many times along the journey that it is worth continuing. I think the last scene of this movie is a masterpiece. Revealing the words he whispered would diminish the value of the movie. But I think he was saying, "You'll be okay, we'll meet again someday, somewhere." It wasn't a promise, but a hope for life.
I love many parts of this too! I loved too when she was alone looking out the window and that New Age kind of music, and the music at the beginning when Bob is arriving in Tokyo. It would be amazing to go there, but read that it's the most expensive city in the world. I hope to ride my bicycle around the world but I bet it's hard to camp in my tent in Tokyo ha! It would be amazing to ride bike all over Japan too! The Mori forests and to go through the big Tori gates and think about their unique religion. It must be amazing too some of the places Charlotte goes and so neat when she's learning to arrange the flowers with the traditionally dressed ladies, and a lot more, just them having fun and chasing around the city and her friends. I still wish she'd make a sequel no matter what she said, and people can change their minds. As I write this I can hear that song that plays when Charlotte is alone looking out the window at Tokyo. I try to write music like that but no way do I arrive there to a place of hope and mystery with such a metaphorical view as is Charlotte's . I wish that part was longer, or the whole story for that matter ha!
One of my all time favorites. I don't think there could have been a more perfect role for Bill Murray, and he perfectly captured the angst, confusion, and general exhaustion of what comes next, even when you're someone as famous as him. The cinematography, brilliant at is core, beautifully shows the juxtaposition of Japan: a dizzying, busy technological landscape surrounded by tradition, beauty, and calm. Combine that all with a wonderful soundtrack (notably Charlotte's trip to Kyoto), and you've got a cinematic masterpiece that taps into the emotional unlike any other.
I guess I am millionth person saying that I went to the hotel when I was in Tokyo just to be in the same bar the stars were in. The hotel is fantastic. The Bar is fantastic. It was so cool to be there. The film is amazing.
This is a film, which captivated me, I was also lost in my mid 50s, and was traveling to SEA which ultimately resulted in my leaving the USA to retire in Asia. I feel I have been reborn here. 🙏 I love big luxurious hotels in Asia.❤️
I just came from a 20th anniversary screening in Auckland my home city in New Zealand seeing it again in a theatre after all these years it a magicial night its my all time favourite movie i will never forget this night
I watched this movie for the first time when I was 16, since then has been one of my favorite movies ever, the film is so subtle, so peaceful, so elegant, just beautiful.
I was 18 at the time, but I feel the same. I've watched it more than any other movie, many times when I was feeling stressed, or depressed, or worried. It's the ultimate comfort film.
We all know what Bill whispered in Johanson's ear. "My all time favorite cartoon cat is Garfiled, and i really feel lucky to play his voice in the coming Garfield movie."
I loved this movie. I consider it a meditation on the nature of friendship. The film is about reaching out and having difficulty connecting with others. It's a movie about mood and observation, not about story and plot. I love how this film was made in such a gentle and graceful manner. Sophia Coppola's second and best film. Perceptive and insightful about human nature.
A film, which an old, dear friend introduced to me. Thinking back makes the memories somewhat feel, like how I feel now when I watch this movie. I’ve seen it many times and it always makes me feel the sense of wonder and slight confusion.
One of my all-time favorites. It is a highly emotional film without any obscenity, but it deeply follows people and their personal challenges and crises. Goonies for grown-ups for me.
Love stories come in many forms. But Soffia Coppola's masterpiece is in a league of its own. And it is a league that is recognized or even understood by very few. Those of us that have experienced such enchanting moments when we were young and again as we've grown older, cherish this film immensely. For Lost In Translation is one of our own personally mirrored images of our heart's past exchanges. When none of us were truly lost and that of which was translated between us, enriched only infinity upon the love of man and woman.
First of all, the movie looks gorgeous and sounds gorgeous. Have you heard of quarter-life crisis? It's the idea that there's a crisis at roughly 15-year intervals. Thats's the genius of these two main characters - going through different crises simultaneously, and being each other's balm but also each other's agony - one going through mid-life crisis where time is slipping away and all you've built leaves you cold and one the crisis you can go through in your 20's where you are paralysed with so much choice and insecurity. Ultimately, it's a paean on yearning. Yearning for a different life, yearning for a purer love, yearning for that beautiful freedom of being a stranger in a land where nobody knows you. It could only really be made by someone relatively young with that yearning fresh in their soul. And again, words just cannot describe the visual thrill when this came out and seeing it on the big screen. From the very first shot of those pastel pink panties, it's just an eye-gasm of a movie.
I’ve seen this movie many times and will watch it again. Every time I finish watching it I get the same satisfaction that you would get after reading your favorite novella.
It really is a movie that captivates your attention totally. You can only love every miute of it. I have always though what would i have told Scarlett Johanson as Bill Murray´s character in the final scene. I know.
Absolutely adore this movie to no end. ❤ Love everything about it but it's the soundtrack that really hooked me. It's completely made up of music and artists I've never heard of and it is perfection.
Very well done documentary on a film that continues to hold people's interest. Some of the comments below about the film being "racist" or "promoting adultery" are just nonsense. Life is messy, and this film gave a sort of poetic look at how important it is to find someone to connect with.
some of it was, but again contextually in 2003, most of America was. And it was "okay" to make casual racial jokes for some people, or at least in private. The world has opened up a lot more since then with the Internet, etc. Yep Life is messy, and the movie brilliantly captures loneliness in relationships, and those times where we're in a rut, or stuck very well. And it also does an amazing job in capturing Japan, and the modern city life with all the lights, and people in it. Very cool, but still a slightly weird age gap between the characters. But I'd say Bill Murray pulls it off well, and not creepy that much imo except to some people as I've seen also comment about that elsewhere. I'm not in that camp, but did feel a little weird as it felt a little more like flirting than friendship at many times. Outside the kiss, which was meaningful, and symbolizes the significance of the relationship, it didn't move beyond it, which kind of made it OK, and constitutes just the blurriness of life at times, and this weird thing and mess we call that's life.
Man Bill Murray is a fucking G lol who has that much control to just decide to show up whenever the hell he feels like it with no obligation. Every man's dream
Every film captures a time and place that will never be again. This one caught (fictionally) a couple of people out of place yet at the right moment, and it hit me hard because for some reason, I was feeling exactly what both leads were feeling. At least that’s how it seemed to me. Then it was over and they were off again and the moment passed. It will always evoke that indescribable feeling in me, though. I think this is Sophia Coppola’s truest film and only she could have made it. I’m glad she did even if it’s bittersweet to think about it now, because I’m much older and in a different part of my life and I can never go back.
Tokyo was the right place to film this movie. But, you can also say this took part in other places in Asia in the 80s, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand. An Expat a little lost meeting another of the same.
i love this film the only film from the 21st century on my all time top 20 list i adore Sofia and all her film. This is a great documentary and makes me appreciate the film even more
The whisper at the end felt like a Zen koan similar to if a tree falls in the wood and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Scarlett did visit a temple, Bob did fire golf balls at Mt Fuji a very sacred icon, he helped her medically, and returned her coat. The movie has spiritual overtones that connect it. We're all connected, but due to translation issues, don't always recognize it.
Last Life In The Universe ( 2004) is the Japanese LIT. Like Translation a minor perfect gem of eerie Zen nothingness with one of the most stunning endings to a film ever.
By coincidence, this film came out not long before my first trip to Tokyo - I loved the film, and it turned out to reflect part of my trip there... that being said, the film really only captures a small part of the Tokyo experience. It is for sure a very dreamy city.
I've always loved this movie; everything from cast to writing to especially the dreamy music. I love this BTS. I only wish the English spoken language didn't have English subtitles. (The French is appreciated!) To me subtitles that aren't translating are simply unnecessarily distracting. But I know there's some sort of algorithm ($$$) pushing for it. C'est la vie.
I appreciate the assumption that I am too young for this to happen...but, as surprising as it may be, some of us are over 40. I saw him some time in 2001 or 2002, before the film was released. So I could be mistaken, and he was here for something else, but the times seem to line up well, and I figured it was during filming.
Normally they cast a 25 year old to play a 17 year old. In this film it's the other way around! Her character's wardrobe choices and general facts/info about her character's life that we get in the film make her seem much older.
The whole thing about mid-life crisis or early life crisis... maybe that's just it. I see life more of a 25-yr phase. After 3 of them, 76 and up are bonus years.
I've saw this in the theater with my father. He hated it (a laughing-hate). But hated so much he always tell the story of that day. He even told the story to my soon-to-be wife the last time I saw him before his stroke. He always had a laugh with that memory.
yea I drove home that nigt from the movie theater disappointed. Wasn't sure what I was expecting, maybe to laugh more...think more.....feel more....the movie just felt like one big shoegaze music video
A great documentation, I just wish there were more Japanese perspectives on the movie and how it was perceived by Japanese critics and audience seeing their own culture depicted that way. In the end western movies about Japan or set in Japan tend to draw from that common stereotype mostly seen from a western angle.
I don't think it's a movie about Japan. It uses the atmosphere of Japan and the feeling of being a tourist in such different culture to underline character's feelings of being alien to their own lifes.
They would prob think it's racist. I would be interested in film critics of Japan and their takes too. But it was in 2003, and again we forget how isolated the world was. Much less than the 90's and every decade before. But still before the prevalence of Internet, and internet culture. Before Facebook, RU-vid, Google, etc. Movie was strictly from an American perspective, and America was casually racist before 2003 and Obama, and less diverse/ pushing predominantly white American views as a continuation from the 90's.
@@Books-Movies-Podcasts-zt2hiEvery claim that I've seen that the film is racist has come from someone in the West. This includes some Asian Americans. I have never seen any Japanese critical appraisals. Also, I have never seen a Western attack of the film from any critic who speaks Japanese. They totally ignore the Japanese dialog in the film and also ignore the Japanese characters.
That's fair and understandable, that it's a view from a western lens. I see a comment by a Japanese man recommending the film. But could also be that they're indifferent. If someone mocks their accents, they may not mind. Maybe there is a line, if they mock other physical characteristics like eyes, etc, it may be obviously offensive and racially offensive. The film does mock the height of Japanese people perhaps in the shower scene where Murray has to adjust the height of the shower. But anyways, not reading into every minute detail, but times change. That was 2003. Maybe many Japanese also are self-deprecating and enjoy it humorously@@brachiator1 (btw I'm the same commentator as @Books-movies-podcasts its just another of my channels)... As a fan of Japan, the portrayal, and Japanese people shown in the movie are authentic, and I dig it. Just on my rewatch of it, I felt some of the humorous digs at the Japanese culture while authentic was slightly unnecessary or insulting - like everyone has a business cards, they talk a lot apparently but actually mean v. little (suntory director scene), but arcades/karaoke depictions were all well done and the shots are all really beautiful, but again context was 2003.
@@brachiator1that's just not true, a lot of Japanese people also found the movie quite racist and based in wrong stereotypes, and that for a reason, the movie is just stupid in that sense and indeed quite racist
