Personally I know when someone is a dick, I don't need a voice-over telling me.
said nothing about a voice over.
You are really struggling articulating your point. In film, dicks have consequences. And if they don’t, it’s shown they’re obviously bad people. In Pulp Fiction we know they’re gangsters.
Film communication:
Watch Apocalypse Now’s intro.
What’s the message? Emphasis on message. It’s that war is hell. He starts to blur the lines between the ceiling fan and the helicopter blades. This is creative intent to make an audience feel a certain way.
How is this communicated? Visually.
Film is a visual medium. Which is why cinematography often makes dicks look like dicks.
Even without the visuals, often dicks are called out as such. For instance Always Sunny’s first episode we learn they’re complete racists and this is obvious by their behavior. But the script reinforces it by having people regularly call them out as horrible people. Their actions have consequences.
This is creative intent.
You’re trying to say “that’s the point” but there’s nothing in the script to show that’s the point. If anything, the racism is a side thing from the isolation. Bill Murray is isolated from his wife and son and misses his sons birthday. He isn’t calling. We know he’s a dick there, but ScarJo’s character isn’t doing anything like that. Her husband is off doing his job and she’s getting all existential and shit.
Show me how that’s the point of the film.
Because films - good films - reinforce their subject matter.
You’re saying the point is that American’s are racist and xenophobic but the film makes no attempt to call that behavior out as bad.
Your analysis is highly interpretative.
Rewatch the scene again.
Who wins the scene? How is it in any way an indictment on American tourists? What’s the messaging? It basically messages that Japanese people are weirdos.
If what you said were true it would be reinforced in the film. It’s not. Why would it be reinforced? Because film is a visual medium.
I highly suggest thinking of film in a more analytical manner. Start here. Also: low and high angles.
We are arguing two different things.
I maintain that Lost in Translation is the whitest film I’ve seen sans Birth of a Nation and Jackass: The Movie.
It stars two highly privileged Americans being assholes in a foreign nation in a drama that casts them in a sympathetic light with no reason to care about them. Yet many people find it “relatable”. Bad movie.
If I came off as an asshole in this post it’s only because you called me a dummy.
