Map of the Sounds of Tokyo (2009)

Throw this one in the "great concept, flimsy execution" pile. If Isabel Coixet had pulled this off, it would have been an absolute knockout: one part Lost in Translation, one part Leon the Professional, one part The Conversation. I couldn't imagine a more charged mixture. Unfortunately, the challenge existent in realistically representing all of her ideas overcame her, as I imagine it would many other filmmakers. The greatest hurdle was convincingly portraying a romance between a Japanese fish-gutter/assassin and a Spanish wine seller whose only common language is English. Her choice in acting talent is strong, but Rinko Kikuchi doesn't quite have the range of expression or grasp on linguistic nuance that allowed Maggie Cheung to pull off a similar stunt in Clean. Sergi Lopez, meanwhile, is stranded by the utter vacuity of the character - after an hour and a half with him, the only defining trait he left me with was a propensity for really bad Depeche Mode karaoke. The chemistry between these two characters is understandable in theory (much like the rest of the film), but watching them stumble around their lines is borderline painful to behold. I also felt that, for the film's apparent interest in sound, the sound design itself isn't anything special. With such an evocative title, I couldn't help but imagine a film defined by its ambient noise, drawn out in sonic vectors, with each setting's atmosphere especially important to what's happening on screen. Not so. Map of the Sounds of Tokyo isn't a complete failure. The movie is gorgeous, but carries with it an intriguing sterility, sort of like a bloodstained perfume commercial. It has a dark, mysterious core that stays with you for a bit after the film's over; you're likely to look back on it favorably, even if the process of watching it isn't very satisfying. Some of Coixet's setpieces are very imaginative and might have really popped in a movie with a little more life. This is not that movie.