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Reader comments on Lost in Translation
Subject: Re: Lost in the belly of digestion! the antidote
Date: Sep 24, 2004
There's something about the relationship between American and Japanese cultures that makes the setting natural - the way that so much of contemporary Japanese culture is derived (in unique and Japanese ways) from recent American culture, and vice versa, kind of works off the familiarity vs. alienation angle nicely. I can't think of a better setting, really - it's just that the Japanese people, like every non-Bill-or-Scarlett character in the movie, are played as alien, and/or for laughs - and while the former makes sense, the latter, by the time you've reached the end of a film filled with Japanese people and in which the only sympathetic characters happen to be white, gets a little tasteless.
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Re: Lost in the belly of digestion! the antidote
I'm not sure Jack was watching the same film as me. I was viewing the peculiarities and onomalies of Japanese society - the fascination with English (a high proportion of their adverts are only in English) and yet the contrasting inaccessibility of their society, from uncompromising signs in Tokyo to social blockers. The observations were not racist, but finely observed and at times very subtle and so real.
If I had a gripe it would be about that incomprehensible scene at the beginning where we were treated to lingering shots of pink panties. Was this some Western dig at the Japanese cult fetish for white schoolgirl knickers? Or purely gratuitous? or what? No matter how beautiful the rump displayed, the relevance to the story is debatable.
More acting by Bill Murray please in roles that require such understatement, and Ms Johannsen is going far
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Comment index:
» Re: Lost in the belly of digestion! the antidote « from Horse, Sep 24, 2004
» Re: Lost in the belly of digestion! the antidote « from Horse, Sep 24, 2004
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