Alone In Tokyo.
101 Mins. Starring: Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson, Anna Faris & Giovanni Ribisi. Director: Sofia Coppola.
Neon dreams ready to rise like the sun in this land. 21 years old (it all seems like yesterday. Not a decade and change. It always does). 2006. November's eve, sitting in a Chinese restaurant with my folks, breaking prawn crackers a night before I'm about to head out to Toronto, Canada for a gap year and a future I hoped to write like for Basketball games (turns out I'd be home for Christmas in less than two months and I'm still penning that hoop dream...such is life), Dad asks me at the start of this adventure where else would I like to see in the world. My answers as quick as it's simple...Tokyo. Some of your favourite movies are classic ('Dog Day Afternoon'), some are epic and entertaining and remind you of your childhood favourites like 'Terminator 2' (childhood? How's that for a 'Judgement Day' parents?), or 'Jurassic Park' ('The Dark Knight'). Some are existential looks at love ('A Ghost Story') and life ('The Tree Of Life'). Others inspire as much as they influence. Put it this way, the don't just change...they make your life. Now sitting here writing this under laptop light outside the big, bright neon quarantined one of Tokyo (the port town of Yokohama to be exact), I guess with Sake instead of maple syrup I did make it to Japan after all...even if my American dream (by way of Canada) became the stuff of pipes. That's why Sofia Coppola's classic, big in Japan, Tokyo drift movie, 'Lost In Translation' like the 'South Or The Border, West Of The Sun', 'Norwegian Wood' of a Haruki Murakami novel, starring the one of a million kind, Bill Murray and a breakthrough Scarlett Johansson is my all-time favourite film. And not just because lost in Tokyo for a minute and once in a lifetime moment this film and this place served as a backdrop to my own love story with a girl who shared the same name as Scarlett's character as we sat and drank Suntory beer ("for relaxing times") on the top floor bar of the same Park Hyatt Hotel that served these two lonely lost in love characters first meeting over cigar and cigarettes. With jazz playing perfectly in the background, moving in unpredictable, wave like rhythms like the familiar blue pool below reflecting the night neons of the best view of the Shinjuku skyline you'll see in Tokyo more than a Tower or Skytree. Stealing a kiss in that same elevator scene before it all came down. As I write this in memory just outside the city, 'Lost In Translation' isn't just the language of a loved and lost story, it's also the whole reason I'm here in Japan. Living the dream and living my life. This film taught me about Tokyo. Made me want to come to Tokyo. And now teaching in Japan I've made my dream happen, found in translation.
17 years old. Before the Avengers. Before skydiving through the same digital neon skyline of the anime adaptation of 'Ghost In The Shell'. Before her umbrella in translation reunion with Hawkeye's Ronin in the 'Endgame' to all that ashes to dust, 'Infinity War' as 'Black Widow'...who will eventually have her own solo movie (and already would have by now if it wasn't thanks to COVID-19 in 2020) once the quarantine lifts. A reunion which made for the Johansson that can play anyone's best year with an Academy Award double for a history following Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominations for Netflix's' 'Marriage Story' and a endearingly humorous and heartbreaking scene steal in Taika Waititi's 'Jojo Rabbit' (those shoes). But before all that and a formidable filmography to boot, this study of Scarlett was subtly and tastefully lying across a Park Hyatt bed for the iconic imagery of the outstanding, opening credits, like a perfect portrait by painter John Kacere. All before Bill Murray jet-lag, fever dream woke up in the back of one of those black, white, orange or green Tokyo taxis as iconic as a New York yellow cab (that has also awoken another dream of mine to write a Japanese remake of Michael Man's 'Collateral' starring Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx and the Hulk or Mark Ruffalo (another favourite film that changed my life seeing it the night before I left for the 6 in '06). 'Tanpo' in translation anyone?). And rubbed his eyes to pinch himself like he was dreaming when he saw those atmospheric, eclectic, electric neons of Shinjuku that were the inspiring illuminating reasons I wanted to see this city. And trust me...it's exactly like that moment. All scored to the classic soundtrack like the equally atmospheric 'Girls' of Death In Vegas. Squarepusher's 'Tommib', 'Fantino' by Sebastian Tellier, some Simon and Garfunkel and Atlanta Rhythm Section, the Air, 'Alone In Kyoto' Shinkansen Scarlett scene and The Jesus and Mary Chain, 'Just Like Honey' concrete skyline outro, just like Awkwafina's homaging 'Farewell' straight outta China last year. And who could forget Rick James or some "sucking on my titties", strip club music to 'F### The Pain Away' like 'Midnight At The Oasis'. Take your pick for the next time you hit the karaoke bar. But apart from some pink wig Pretending, 'Brass In (Our) Pocket', there's nothing more for us than Bill Murray channeling Bryan Ferry for Roxy Music's 'More Than This'.
"I could feel at the time. There was no way of knowing", Murray's Bill muses over his. There's a terrific book of too good to be true, but true as such stories about Bill Murray ("no one will ever believe you") by Gavin Edwards called, 'The Tao Of Bill Murray' that also shares stories of his movies in cinephile analysis and nostalgia. The way Edwards goes into detail about how Murray uses this punch drunk performance to communicate a love for Scarlett's Charlotte he just can't say is worth more than these words. Just like the stirring scene of compelling cinematic history before the head lean iconic image of trust you see above. Mic drop. Like carrying her home asleep and tucking her in bed like a gentleman, curled up and taking about life that inspired a song this writer wrote over a decade ago, seeing 'The Light' like Common from music to movies. Or the "keep writing" message I would critically heed. One of the things that makes 'Lost In Translation' work in this culture electric shock of an existential, insomniac lonely lullaby is the fact that 'The Virgin Suicides' and 'The Beguiled' director Sofia Coppola shares more than 'The Godfather' were she was introduced as an infant and then a major catalyst character arc by the act of Part III by the family with her directing father. Like Francis Ford, this film may be different but shows how Coppola's in classic cinema know how to make scenes breathe their own life. Or that the BAFTA winners here for Sofia's screenplay Oscar, 'Ghostbusters', 'Scrooged', 'Groundhog Day' and Wes Anderson again and again actor Bill Murray was on the second wind, reinventing generational act of his career. Whilst the 'Lucy' and 'Under The Skin' star Scarlett Johansson was just finding her feet...but oh see how she ran all the way to those shoes. From lipped stockings to the workout GIF I post everytime I try and join a gym. To the Rat Pack scotch (apple juice) and black toe (I almost had that here. Really! Don't stub your toe until it almost has you breaking for the nearest hospital during corona), this is a compelling classic, anchored by two actors who detached find connection in an alien city and their own marriage stories back home foreign to them. One in the crisis of mid-life. The other with the anxiety of youth. Both unbeknownst to the fire alarm ringing notion that they both risk wasting the moments they make before it's all too late. Like knowing that the Autumn of your years are coming like Winter. Or being disillusioned to the fact that you're only young once...and not for long. Just like the idea that real friendship, real love like this comes but once in a lifetime. Just as quick as a short trip. A 25 year marriage and a young woman whose just that age. For all the moments in this movie that serve as meaning and memory just wait until Scarlett's Charlotte asks Bill's Bob, "when you leaving"? And oh how he answers. Oh for one more run and dance around the scrambling crossing in Shibuya like The Jezabels, 'My Love Is My Disease'. That as Tokyo's Times Square right now in quarantine is as empty as our love and lost hand and hearts.
Scarlett broke up with great American singer/songwriter Pete Yorn in 2009 (for the 'Break Up' album. Not an actual separation. They're just friends) like 'I Am The Cosmos', before launching her own music career with an album of 'Big In Japan' Tom Waits covers with 'Anywhere I Lay My Head'. Two years back on the 15 year anniversary of 'Lost' (released in 2003 it feels so aesthetically beautiful as its time) Johansson found Yorn again as the 'Relator's' related for the 'Apart' EP and 'Bad Dreams' song as classic as take me to the 'Movies'. "Thanks for breaking up with me again Pete" she told Yorn in the linear note credits for this musical sequel that somehow playing this in a Tokyo hotel also felt like a spiritual sequel to 'Translation' or this love and life. Just like Coppola's ex husband's Spike Jonze's love app-tually movie 'Her' (also starring Scarlett...as a smartphone) was meant to be a reply to Sofia's 'Lost In Translation' (I guess a post 'Friends', pre-everything else, 'Sneaky Pete' great character actor run Giovanni Ribisi's camera character who I always vowed never to be like was him. And let's not get started on a post 'Scary Movie' pre-Pratt and 'Mom' Anna Faris "movie with Keanu" character. Nobody does it better), at least 'Joker' Oscar winner Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara met on that movie. And as we leave you guessing with the last words that people have been left debating for years between Bill and Scarlett, whispered like the note Rooney writes for the wall in the truly haunting in albeit, all different ways, 'A Ghost Story'. That's the point. You're not supposed to know. Like Bill Murray said, "it's between lovers". There's a beauty in mystery. Protect that. As the real spiritual sequel to 'Lost In Translation' in another solitary hotel is the fairytale in New York loneliness of the 'A Very Murray Christmas' special. Reuniting Bill with all his George Clooney and Miley Cyrus friends. Directed by Sofia Coppola on Netflix (Scarlett's sssnake Kaa and Bill's Baloo themselves reuniting on Jon Favreau's live action Disney 'Jungle Book' remake). Streaming it last Christmas in a hotel room in Tokyo on the eve of flying home for the holidays before a New Year back in Japan like the 2020 Olympics I'll wait for like that sportswriting hoop dream (hey Rui!), I couldn't help marvel at how everything comes around as rain fell like snow outside the hotel window, wishing a Merry Christmas to all those I was going to join in presence under the tree. Like it says in the trailer, "sometimes you have to go halfway around the world...to come full circle". Thinking how as the rising sun fell in the Far East I had found myself no longer lost in Tokyo. But in a transformation that needed no translation. Now is that everything? I feel like I should say more. Here's for relaxing times. TIM DAVID HARVEY.
Further Filming: 'A Very Murray Christmas', 'Her', 'A Ghost Story'.
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