Lost in Translation (2003)
Back in September, my mom suggested that we watch Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation, and I’ll admit, I was a little sketible. How wrong I was. I started the movie with low expectations and 1 hour and 42 minutes later I was in tears. I bought the movie on dvd, watched it twice after that and had the soundtrack on repeat for weeks. This movie hit a seriously deep place in my soul. Lost in Translation is a very simple film, yet is also so complex. This dramady/character study deals with being American in another country, emotional love affairs, and what it means to be lonely.
Bob Harris (Bill Murray) and Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson), meet in a hotel bar in Tokyo. Bob is a seasoned movie star who is there to shoot a whiskey commercial and Charlotte is a young woman who is there accompanying her photographer husband. Exhausted from travel and time change, the two form a bond a gregarious and open bond with each other. They are both discontent in their current marriages, and find a strong emotional connection through being Americans in a foreign land.
Sofia Coppola’s writing is excellent. While it’s clear that Bob and Charlotte are having an emotional love affair, the two never outwardly say that they like each other. There’s a scene where Bob and Charlotte are laying on the bed and talking about life, who they want to be and the difficulties of marriage. They talk about their lonlinesses, and just how utterly different both of their lives are. They face each other and through the way they look at eachother you can tell that they want to be with each other, but their lives are so different that it would never work out. All the little conversations between the two feel so real and sweet, knowing that in the end of the movie they both have to go back to their normal lives away from each other is painful. Part of why I like this movie so much is because their relationship was never labeled as a friendship or a romance or anything in between. Just raw human connection so strong that it exceeds the need for a label.
Not only is the writing beautiful, the cinematography is stunning. So much of the film takes place in the hotel where Bob and Charlotte are staying, you really feel like you know your way around it by the end of the movie. All the scenes in the hotel bar are done a little differently which keeps it as a place of familiarity but also strangeness. My favorite shot from the movie is when Bob and Charlotte are running through a cramped, violently lit arcade, the machines are incredibly loud and obnoxious and they’re holding hands zooming through all the chaos.
I highly recommend this movie to anyone who is looking for a story about the importance of human connection. This movie is gorgeous and raw but also painful to warch. It doesn’t just feel like a movie, it feels like a reality.
Bob and Charlotte meet in the hotel bar for the first time. Good introduction to the characters.
