Interpreter's notes

Lost in Translation

Rating: * * * * (out of 5)
Director: Sofia Coppola
Running time: 102 minutes
Language: English, Japanese
Opens April 17 at Cinema Rise

[See Japan Times movie listings]

The dialogue of "Lost in Translation" never sizzles, never gets out of line, doesn't really reveal the protagonists' interior landscapes. It seems like most of the scenes are about the two of them sitting there, telling each other about how much they want to sleep. Bob and Charlotte spend an awful lot of time not saying very much. Even in one of the most crucial scenes when they swap life stories, the sentences trail off and then they're . . . sleeping.

All this is very much in the Japanese cinematic tradition -- and in this sense, "Lost in Translation" feels Japanese. It's never about what a man and a woman say to each other, but the space they manage to create for themselves. (Kaori Shoji)

Bill Murray won a Golden Globe as Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical, so it's natural to call "Lost in Translation" a comedy, even if Sofia Coppola doesn't betray an instinctive flair for comedy. The scene in which a Nordic Track machine spouts Japanese is funny; the one in which a call girl attempts English is not. Better to leave the funny business to the funny people. Murray gives his cynical hipster persona a rest, but embodies the ridiculousness of Bob Harris' situation with painful precision.