Groucho

I'm not sure why movies with "no plot" are bad, but movies that rehash the same stupid plots we've all seen a million times are good.

BTW, some great responses in here defending the "no plot" movies.

renaldow

I don't think she commits suicide either, but I can see how someone who wasn't familiar with the comic could take it that way. I think the bus ride at the end is Enid dropping out of everything. Maybe she leaves town, maybe she goes to the isle of misfit people, but I don't think she commits suicide. Just because the guy waiting for the bus was old, we assume he's waiting to die. Maybe what Enid and the old man both actually share is their inability to find their place in society now. Both are lost and directionless.

iggystar

I get what you're saying, but, I didn't feel the connection between the characters. The execution left me numb, therefore, the movie became a series of pointless, plotless scenes.

I'm not above movies that require a few more brain cells, movies that are quiet and character driven..this one didn't do it for me.

Dr. DVD

Waking Life- that movie is all philosophy

The Big Lebowski

While not yet a movie, Aeon Flux:the series had no plot whatsoever.

Groucho

The Big Lebowski actually had a very standard "private eye" plot. It would be very easy to rework the story as a serious 1940's-style noir thriller.

Rivero

sundog

As much as I'd love to rail against those dismissing a movie because it "didn't go anywhere" I can't (to a point). Generally, movies that don't focus on a narrative progression from point A to point B to point C appeal more to an audience's emotional responses. And as such, these works can be more alienating or more effective. I can't argue against a person's feelings. The most I can do is try and construct what the picture meant to me and how its construction lead me to that feeling.

However, I find a lot of "plotless" pics to be a finer distillation of the essences of cinema. When one gets too wrapped up in plot points and plot holes the criticism is veering more towards the literary realm than cinematic. It's not just a story on that screen. It's a visual medium, it's an aural medium, it's a temporal medium, and it's a fractured medium. The narrative is just one aspect carried over from other art forms (theater, writing).

Let the cinema be the cinema.

Cygnet74

i'm not defending Lost in Translation. I don't think it was that great of a film. but failing to acknowledge that the filmmaker was communicating a "point" about people feeling incomplete in their lives, or that the plot structure followed emotional developments would be my own fault, not ms. coppola's. now, if i expressed concern that the moral conflict was a bit too superficial and some of the supporting characters were more like caricatures, that would be a criticism that required some thought, instead of an altogether dismissal of the "plot" and "point".
well, maybe that's the "point" of lost in translation, as well. the film is about truly "seeing" people. and perhaps it has opened our eyes, as other films have done, to the loneliness in the people around us.

SFranke

Please use a spoiler tag next time. I haven't seen this movie yet.

Grimfarrow

You mean ABC Africa? Compared to FIVE, its plot is akin to LAwrence of Arabia.

Groucho

Believe it or not, that wasn't much of a spoiler.

Grimfarrow

Kiarostami's FIVE.

Five still seaside shots of 1) a log 2) a pier 3) dogs at sea 4) ducks and 5) rain at night.

It would more likely quality as a 0.0000000000000000000000000000000001 out of 100. In other words, it has no plot.

BTW, it's the best film I've seen all year.

sundog

Damn your eyes!

The Film Center in Chicago couldn't afford it for their Iranian program this month. And it's not playing in the International Film Festival.

SFranke

Oh. Well, that is comforting.

renaldow

We generally only do spoilers on films that are new, otherwise any discussion of a film would be impossible since everyone would be using spoiler tags.

The movie is 4 years old, you've had time to see it.