Frank Baker2
Newcomer
5 messages
joined Jan 2004
Just me being an idiot... every single time I hop onto this forum looking for a second opinion... just to see if I'm losing my mind or if I'm still playing by the rules of the world.
Little Coppola has that feminine touch that was seriously missing from the screen for a while... that ability to say things that are totally banal or even stupid, yet you end up feeling humbled and moved because of the tenderness she puts into it.
Thanks for giving me those twenty minutes of much-needed silence after leaving the AMC Theatres. Thanks for bringing up those similar moments from my own life (like saying goodbye in hotel lobbies while secretly wishing I could just kidnap someone and flee to a deserted island)
Walter's answer already hit on his obsession with digging into the characters' pasts, but I'll say it anyway. Maybe she fell for him because they were physically close—you know, that scene in the hotel room where she’s looking at old photos while they're wrapped up in each other, totally head over heels. But searching for that stuff is pointless because this movie is so incredibly contained in both time and space. First off, they're both just temporary visitors to Tokyo, staying only a few days to get business done. So, that specific window is all that matters. There's this deep, subtle contrast between the interior (the hotel—calm, outward composure) and the exterior (the city—the chaos of concrete vs. their inner stillness). West meets East, maybe...?
The dialogue is banal because that's just how it goes when you meet someone in a hotel and you both know there's no future, but you crave it anyway because, in that moment, that person is your escape from your own mess. Even though they're stuck in different kinds of messes. She's dealing with a post-college crisis, and he's dealing with boredom and a lack of inspiration (he wants to make movies, not commercials). That's the common thread tying them together, and the camera captures that restless, bored feeling in the mud so precisely with that documentary-style realism and those long close-ups. (Really cranks up the psychological weight)
A ton of people are gonna say this movie mocks Japanese culture, but I'd bet my life it's just a Coppola trick to separate the intellectuals from the mediocre. (She's clearly fascinated by Japan, based on at least one interview). First off, not a single Japanese person is caricatured; everything is portrayed so realistically. Even the karaoke friend (playing into the whole cultural phenomenon of karaoke) and even the translator who simply can't find the right words for all those Japanese adjectives the director uses to describe how a macho guy should look, so she just settles for "more intense." The way the side characters are shown just highlights how much of a culture shock Japan—and specifically Tokyo—is for Westerners (which is what draws the two of them together in the first place). And then there's the contrast of visiting the temple, which is basically what most of us *think* Japan is. Thanks, Frank, for showing me just how many idiots were sitting around me in the theater.
One of the genius scenes is when Bill takes her to the room and covers her up, and she looks at him through this half-dreamy haze. He looks at her and... he just touches her shoulder and (I think) pulls the covers up... in that split second, you see a man who is in love, who likes her, but he's terrified like a little kid to do anything wrong, and maybe even his morals are tripping him up because of her age. But man, look at the emotions bubbling up in him. Then the next shot, transferring that emotion into his conversation with the woman. Wow. Perfectly acted for a guy who usually does in those half-stupid comedies....
I don't even feel like typing anymore, but I have one question: is there an American mailing list or a forum out there that isn't crawling with random idiots? Somewhere for people who actually have some knowledge or an education in film or art? Because I'm sick of reading about microphones and all those other dumb comments that just piss me off. It's obvious they just want to show their faces online because they think having an opinion makes them somebody.
