have you ever noticed that when i don't have time to post much i simply say "hey, look at this story here..." without giving any additional comment? well, that was what happened over the weekend. it was a busy weekend; my first in which i felt completely back (the weekend before i spent much of the time thinking about my trip, or cleaning up the detritus from my backpack that quickly scattered throughout the apartment, etc)
among the things we did was see lost in translation, a film about americans who are alone and coping with a strange foreign culture. i really liked it, it perfectly captured both the quick personal bonds one can form when traveling in a strange land and the sensory overload-induced confusion that sets in when one does not speak the language. (personally, i love that feeling, but many people do not, as the film illustrates).
even if i don't get the same depressed reaction that the characters do, several scenes really resonated with me. early in the film, one character stares incomprehensibly at the tokyo subway map. just two weeks ago, i was in a station in the tashkent metro trying to figure out which one was the "green" line from the map in my guidebook, when none of the signs indicated that any of the lines had any "colors." i eventually found a list of the stops that the train made, which theoretically could tell me which line it was by comparing it to my guidebook map. except that the list was in cyrillic and several of the stations' names had changed. i am sure that as i stared at the list of stations on the wall, slowly sounding out the names, i had the same look on my face as scarlett johansonn did in the film.
i also loved how much of the speech on the audio track was in japanese, but none of it was subtitled. the viewer is put into the experience of the characters, trying to make sense of a language that they cannot. unless, that is, the viewer speaks japanese. japanese speakers should not be allowed into this movie. ever. really, if they know too much about japanese language, it totally undermines what this film is trying to do. okay, maybe they can see it if the japanese is dubbed in zulu. what are the odds of someone speaking both japanese and zulu?.
well, this pseudo-review has meandered enough. assuming you don't speak japanese, go see this film.
