11.25.2003
*blush*
so, in my last post, i tried to link to a funny page with mike meyers doing "sprockets" from SNL, and i just tested it and it came up as a link to a goth porn site. my apologies.
11.24.2003
"what time is it there?" & "lost in translation"
like virtually everyone I know, I thoroughly enjoyed sofia coppola’s "lost in translation." the pace of it is really nice. it’s romantic without being gushy or annoying. bill murray is thoroughly worth the hype. he brings surprising sophistication and complexity to the foundation of his great poker faced performance in "rushmore," and his character’s predicament is both rich and believable. but still, like a lot of art flicks with similar mass appeal, I left the theatre feeling as if the whole production was a bit too eager to please.
by contrast, two nights ago I had the pleasure of seeing tsai ming liang’s wonderful "what time is it there?"—a film which deals with similar topics while employing a somewhat opposite approach. to describe it stylistically would surely tread the usual art-flick torture tactics that folks less nerdy than me always hate so much: it’s slow, dry, virtually plotless and almost silent. too often, films that are structurally experimental are forced to sacrifice their emotional resonance. but, once I made adjustments in my expectations, I found the film extremely sophisticated in its handling of social alienation, while at the same time remaining bizarre and surprising throughout.
there are many similarities between the two films. both deal with loneliness through the lens of geographical displacement. in "lost in translation," murray and scarlett johansson are both american visitors to japan. neither is comfortable as a tourist; both are in unhappy romantic predicaments. rather than resolve their dilemmas with love or sex, the film chooses instead to follow them around for a few days as they develop a rather lyrical understanding of one another through their shared distance to the environment surrounding them.
in "what time is it there?", the romantic connection is less direct. a young man in taipei sells a watch to a woman on her way to paris, france. the woman chooses a watch that the young man is wearing (despite the dozens of others he sells as a street vendor) because it has the ability to simultaneously display two time zones (i.e. she can check the time in taipei while she is physically in paris, and vice versa). their conversation is brief and mundane. the woman goes off to paris where she finds herself extremely out of sync with everything around her. the young man goes about his routine back in taipei, while playing quiet audience to his mother’s bizarre and superstitious behavior in the wake of his father’s recent death (she eventually begins to believe that her husband has returned reincarnated as the family’s pet fish, among other things). the young man, according to what can only be described as strikingly open-ended motives, soon begins to set every clock he comes in contact with ahead to the time zone of paris. this bit of iconoclastic inspiration is the only official connection between the two main characters. the film from that point forward simply follows the woman in paris and the man and his mother in taipei. there is no further interaction between the man and the woman, and the very designation of the story as romantic is purely intuitive.
the temptation that a film like "what time is it there?" manages to avoid is to reduce notions of warmth or empathy to a series of accepted clichés. on the other hand, the one problem I have with "lost in translation" is that it’s excessively likeable. I felt as though I already knew what was good about it prior to watching it. any artsy fartsy film geek in america already knows bill murray is perfect with wisecracking ennui. scarlett johansson is sharp and adorable in "ghost world," and is more so here. the kevin sheilds stuff is as cool as can be, as always. and frankly, the film’s in-joke-ish humor is occasionally cheap, with its wacky japanese talk shows and vacationing american starlets who "aren’t anorexic." coppola seems keenly aware of her ideal audience (and, for better or worse, I’m basically it) and she tends to drop all the right ingredients in its lap. fortunately, the style and care put into the performances eventually make up for it, and the good certainly outweighs the bad.
by contrast, "what time is it there?" is all in the details: the protagonist watching well chosen clips from "the 400 blows"… awkward glances during a conversation in a restaurant… the physicality of the bickering son and mother… the everyday sublimity of a fish in a tank. the care that goes into details such as these carries over into the film’s surrealism, so that by the time you’re watch a man water a plant with his own urine nothing has digressed into the territory of "sprockets."
the great miracle of a film like "what time is it there?" is that it gave me essentially nothing in terms of conventional character development and managed to make me care about what was happening regardless. it deals with a complex and difficult sort of empathy. the kind where you recognize that the people you are in contact with are and will remain a mystery to you. and still, you choose to concern yourself with them not only in spite of that fact, but also because of it. this seems to me to be essential to any authentic notion of what a "love story" might be.
(p.s. the link i posted attached to "what time is it there," in the second parapgraph of this post, will connect you to a great review at salon.com with much more to say about the film than my silly ass).
by contrast, two nights ago I had the pleasure of seeing tsai ming liang’s wonderful "what time is it there?"—a film which deals with similar topics while employing a somewhat opposite approach. to describe it stylistically would surely tread the usual art-flick torture tactics that folks less nerdy than me always hate so much: it’s slow, dry, virtually plotless and almost silent. too often, films that are structurally experimental are forced to sacrifice their emotional resonance. but, once I made adjustments in my expectations, I found the film extremely sophisticated in its handling of social alienation, while at the same time remaining bizarre and surprising throughout.
there are many similarities between the two films. both deal with loneliness through the lens of geographical displacement. in "lost in translation," murray and scarlett johansson are both american visitors to japan. neither is comfortable as a tourist; both are in unhappy romantic predicaments. rather than resolve their dilemmas with love or sex, the film chooses instead to follow them around for a few days as they develop a rather lyrical understanding of one another through their shared distance to the environment surrounding them.
in "what time is it there?", the romantic connection is less direct. a young man in taipei sells a watch to a woman on her way to paris, france. the woman chooses a watch that the young man is wearing (despite the dozens of others he sells as a street vendor) because it has the ability to simultaneously display two time zones (i.e. she can check the time in taipei while she is physically in paris, and vice versa). their conversation is brief and mundane. the woman goes off to paris where she finds herself extremely out of sync with everything around her. the young man goes about his routine back in taipei, while playing quiet audience to his mother’s bizarre and superstitious behavior in the wake of his father’s recent death (she eventually begins to believe that her husband has returned reincarnated as the family’s pet fish, among other things). the young man, according to what can only be described as strikingly open-ended motives, soon begins to set every clock he comes in contact with ahead to the time zone of paris. this bit of iconoclastic inspiration is the only official connection between the two main characters. the film from that point forward simply follows the woman in paris and the man and his mother in taipei. there is no further interaction between the man and the woman, and the very designation of the story as romantic is purely intuitive.
the temptation that a film like "what time is it there?" manages to avoid is to reduce notions of warmth or empathy to a series of accepted clichés. on the other hand, the one problem I have with "lost in translation" is that it’s excessively likeable. I felt as though I already knew what was good about it prior to watching it. any artsy fartsy film geek in america already knows bill murray is perfect with wisecracking ennui. scarlett johansson is sharp and adorable in "ghost world," and is more so here. the kevin sheilds stuff is as cool as can be, as always. and frankly, the film’s in-joke-ish humor is occasionally cheap, with its wacky japanese talk shows and vacationing american starlets who "aren’t anorexic." coppola seems keenly aware of her ideal audience (and, for better or worse, I’m basically it) and she tends to drop all the right ingredients in its lap. fortunately, the style and care put into the performances eventually make up for it, and the good certainly outweighs the bad.
by contrast, "what time is it there?" is all in the details: the protagonist watching well chosen clips from "the 400 blows"… awkward glances during a conversation in a restaurant… the physicality of the bickering son and mother… the everyday sublimity of a fish in a tank. the care that goes into details such as these carries over into the film’s surrealism, so that by the time you’re watch a man water a plant with his own urine nothing has digressed into the territory of "sprockets."
the great miracle of a film like "what time is it there?" is that it gave me essentially nothing in terms of conventional character development and managed to make me care about what was happening regardless. it deals with a complex and difficult sort of empathy. the kind where you recognize that the people you are in contact with are and will remain a mystery to you. and still, you choose to concern yourself with them not only in spite of that fact, but also because of it. this seems to me to be essential to any authentic notion of what a "love story" might be.
(p.s. the link i posted attached to "what time is it there," in the second parapgraph of this post, will connect you to a great review at salon.com with much more to say about the film than my silly ass).
