LOST IN TRANSLATION

Radio presenter Dave Berry tackles Sofia Coppola’s Japan-set classic for the first time

“I HOPE YOU are not following me? I don’t know where I’m going!” Michael Palin said this as the camera cut to various pieces of signage hanging above a subterranean network of corridors creating a very busy intersection. There appeared to be thousands of people rushing around and moving in a blur on polished floors like a mesmerising flock of birds. My favourite Python was lost and confused. During Palin’s flagship series Around The World In 80 Days he tackled deadly snakes, blind razor-wielding barbers and burly sailors and now, in this scene, he was finally meeting his match: the rail network of Tokyo, Japan.

I was 11 years old when my family and I were sitting down in front of the television, enjoying Palin’s travels and after watching this particular instalment, I felt fascinated if not slightly scared by Japan, this far-off mystical land that had managed to perplex the best Python.

A short while later Blue Peter decided to do a week’s worth of special programmes also from Japan. I was never an avid viewer of Blue Peter (though their ideas on recycling I wholeheartedly agreed with), but I was intrigued.

That show mixed the traditional Japan with the cutting-edge one, and just as Palin had done before, the trusted Blue Peter presenters now conveyed the same sense of somewhere totally alien and utterly absorbing. And of course, my fascination with the city grew further. So when Empire asked if I’d join its First Take Club, I selected Lost In

Translation, firstly because I’m a huge fan of both Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson. And secondly, even though I had never managed to see it before despite being a huge fan of both of its stars, I was of course aware that its director, Sofia Coppola, uses the backdrop of Japan. So, download complete, with wine and jelly worms open on the coffee table, I pressed play.

Bill Murray’s Bob has a downbeat attitude and sports a hangdog expression, aware he has travelled thousands of miles for filthy cash. An action star coming to the end of his career, now starring in whisky commercials, he strikes an all too familiar stereotype — a married man away on business propping up a hotel bar alone.

Charlotte (Johansson) gives him a smile, more interested in the

tuxedo-clad stranger than the boring friends her photographer husband has lumbered her with for the evening.

After that moment, you realise this story is going to be different to what you may have seen before, thanks to both lead actors delivering subtle, funny, warm performances. Hindsight is of course a wonderful thing, but it’s easy to see back in 2003 how Johansson would become a bona fide movie star.

Coppola conveys Tokyo’s otherworldliness by giving you a sense of intimacy when our two friends — or perhaps star-crossed lovers — are together and they peer out at it. The film also deftly manages to avoid accusations of sleaze in the central relationship because, even though both are married and Bob is 20 years Johansson’s senior, you always believe in two people making a genuine connection far away from home.

From the opening scene, which sees Murray in the back of a taxi brought back to consciousness by the bright, neon lights and a billboard of himself (tuxedo on, glass of whisky in hand), to the touching closing scene that left me on my sofa pretty much in the same way as the characters on screen, smiling but with a tear in my eye, this is a special film and one I wished I’d seen sooner.

Last year I finally made the trip to Tokyo. It is an incredible city and everything I hoped it would be, and I can now appreciate just what a magnificent yet totally different job both Coppola and Palin had done bringing it to our screens.

I too travelled from Tokyo to Kyoto by train as Charlotte does. The train of course arrived precisely on schedule, and even though I’d arrived in plenty of time at the station, I found myself more than a bit confused running from one wrong platform to another. I was breathless when I eventually boarded. I tossed my bag in the luggage rack, slumped in my seat and thought to myself, “If only somebody had bloody warned me how difficult that would be!”

Lost In translation is out now on DVD, Blu-ray and Download. listen to the Dave Berry show on weekdays 4-7pm — www.absoluteradio.co.uk — and this summer, Dave takes to the helm of the absolute radio Breakfast show