Somewhere

Film: Somewhere
Director: Sofia Coppola
Country: USA

Sofia Coppola first received mainstream recognition as a director for her 2003 film Lost In Translation. Her new film Somewhere covers a lot of the same ground as Lost In Translation. Alienation, cultural misunderstanding in a foreign country, emotional detachment from one's career. Some of the scenes in Italy seem taken directly from Lost In Translation, except with Italian culture instead of Japanese culture. The main character is another famous actor being pulled around by the demands of his career. His daughter's mother leaves for unspecified reasons for an indefinite amount of time, leaving their daughter with him. His daughter hardly knows him, because his acting career takes him away most of the time. Unlike Lost In Translation however, Somewhere doesn't have the comedy themes or the sentimental payoff that gave it mainstream appeal. The film is very slow paced, with a lot of long shots of the main character disinterestedly inhabiting his life. There's a long scene where he's watching pole dancers, a long scene where he's sitting still having a mold of his head made, presumeably for props in a movie he's making. People who look to movies mostly for entertainment will probably find the film incredibly boring.

Now, a film can be boring and still be a good film. My theory is that the more boring a film is, the better the artistic payoff has to be for the film to be good. There are some nice subtle points made by the film. At the beginning of the film the main character breaks his arm. When he's with his daughter, you see him watching her figureskate, sitting by the side of the pool while she swims, watching her play Guitar Hero with his buddy. Then later when he gets the cast off, he's taking part in the same activities, playing ping pong, swimming in the pool with her. The subtle point made by his juxtopposition is that, he can only relate to his daughter through physical participation in her activities. There is no real emotional bond except through the ritual of playing. There's an eerie similarity between the scene where he's watching pole dancers and the scene where he's watching his daughter figure skate. Without the ability to interact with her, just as he's a spectator to the strippers' sexiness, he's just a spectator to his daughter's daughter-ness. There is artistic and emotional payoff, but it's not strong enough payoff to justify the slow pacing and lack of entertainment value of the film.

Style: 3
Substance: 8
Overall: 6
Accessibility: 5

I know I haven't been doing many music reviews. It's easier to write about films than music. I've been meaning to write up Robyn - Body Talk and Dum Dum Girls - I Will Be but haven't gotten around to it.

I'm going to make sure to write up White Denim's internet release Last Day Of Summer just because it was so poorly promoted, it got almost no attention at all.