April 11, 2004
A pair of successful small films
Two new DVDs caught my eye this weekend. The first,
Lost in Translation, had me not knowing exactly what to expect. Others seem to find it either a wonderful look at disorientation overseas or a film in which close to nothing happens.
Both camps seem to be correct. We have plenty of imagery of lonely young wife Scarlett Johansson and aging star Bill Murray hanging out doing not very much at a luxury hotel in Tokyo. Even on such a micro stage, however, strange things happen in their separate rooms: beeps and buzzers and faxes emit noises incomprehensible to a Westerner, and curtains open themselves, apparently in response to sunrise.
Anyone who has ever been to Japan will no doubt find Lost in Translation intriguing. Japan is indeed where Western stars go to reap huge sums for liquor commercials. Channel surfing reveals cultural oddities, brilliantly captured in a bit with Murray appearing on "Matthew's Big Hit TV," a show with a screaming host with dyed-blond hair in a neon candy-striped suit.
One can scarcely imagine a corollary situation, say, of a non-English-speaking guest on Jay Leno appearing with the obligatory wrapped present in hand and translator at his side. The DVD contains a gem, an extended version of Murray's appearance with Matthew as seen through the principal camera on the set.
I mostly admired the film's reluctance to have the two principals fall into the sack at the first hints of marital loneliness. They share a deeper sort of intimacy, watching TV together on a hotel bed without having sex, or even touching each other, except for a brief resting of Murray's hand on Johansson's foot.
I say mostly because the ending hints that Stateside, they will embark on an affair, and it's clear they can barely hold a conversation even in Japan, where they have plenty of motivation to band together in an alien place. As I wrote in the Burma chapter of An Amateur's Guide to the Planet :
Lesson Number 3: English speakers form groups for mutual support when attempting to navigate in a little-visited foreign land.
The other DVD we watched was
American Splendor, about the life of Cleveland comic book author Harvey Pekar. Kudos to its blend of actors, their real-life models and animation!
The film gets funnier as it goes along, and Pekar meets Robert Crumb, a nerdy co-worker, his future wife, David Letterman and his eventual daughter! The nerdy co-worker seems almost too much to believe, until we see his inspiration, expounding on the different flavors of jellybeans on the set.
A big hoorah for this look at how a guy with a boring job as a file clerk at a VA hospital found an outlet for his creative muse.
