PROGRAMMING NOTE: Your podcatcher may have downloaded an episode with an audio problem in the second half of the show. If this is the case, you’ll need to delete and re-download the episode to hear it correctly. Apologies for the goof, and thanks for understanding.
So, where have we been?
Actually, it’s Claude’s fault that the episode is so late. What with school reopening, plus some personal drama coming from a couple of directions, it’s been a rough few weeks and apologies all around. To make up for it, Reel 14 will also be coming out in no more than a couple of days.
At any rate, this time around we’ve got a couple of wonderful, bittersweet films that explore relationships between a man and a woman that go deep enough that one could even use the word “love,” but which don’t take that one crucial step, each for their own reasons.
First one is Wong Kar-Wei’s 2000 film In the Mood for Love, which is set in 1962 Hong Kong and stars Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung as a couple who is convinced that their spouses are having an affair with one another. From there we move to a modern-day Tokyo, to see how Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray are handling things with each other, in 2003’s Lost in Translation, directed by Sofia Coppola. These characters are also separated physically and perhaps emotionally from their spouses, and isolated by their inability to speak the local language.
It’s worth noting (because we didn’t bring it up during this over-stuffed show) that both films end the same way: with the male lead whispering something we don’t hear. Go see the films if you haven’t already, then come back here and listen in, and see if you don’t agree with us.
Also, in the interest of full disclosure: Sean wants to note that when he worked in the video store many years ago (because, video store), Sofia Coppola was a customer in the store at least once that he knows of, but he’s pretty sure she didn’t bribe him to cover any of her films for this show.