Lost in Translation

Are we all essentially alone? You could have a partner, a family, the perfect career, everything going your way and still be eaten up by your own silences. In a world full of constant noise, you could be trapped in your own suffocating, inner quiet. 

Lost in Translation is not about language. It is about our walls, personal walls. The ones we raise out of the brick and mortar of personal experience, our fears, our little tragedies and the incessant questions we ask of ourselves.

Bob Harris, American movie star is reduced to appearing in ads for Japanese Whiskey; Charlotte, a philosophy major from Yale, to following her photographer husband around on his work trips. The two meet in a Tokyo hotel and begin to find joy in each others company, bonding over the fact that neither can sleep at night. 

The film has a wicked sense of humor. It takes potshots at little things in the most original way. Like the oversimplified lyrics of the jazz musician in the hotel bar, Bob's misadventures with the Japanese masseuse, the stereotypical answers of Hollywood actress Kelly (fantastically played by Anna Farris) at a Press Conference, and the way Bob converses with a Japanese man fluent in French. There are two stand-out scenes. The whiskey ad shoot where the director gives a long, enthusiastic set of instructions in Japanese which is later translated for Bob into half a sentence. He wonders, “That's all?” There's also the hospital scene where an old man has a rollicking conversation with Bob, combining hand gestures and Japanese. Neither understands the other but send two women sitting behind them on a giggling spree.

One of my favorite things about this film is its use of sound. In some scenes that involve either of the two characters alone, there is an eerie silence, amplified by the oddly beautiful sounds of their footsteps or the rustling of a blanket or running water. In the scene where Charlotte runs into Bob after a swim in the pool, the awkward silences between them are allowed their time. This relationship is a pulling down of the walls for both. And they will both do it slowly. In another scene, a water aerobics class takes place while Bob takes a swim in the pool. The camera follows Bob as he dips and rises, the music ebbing away when his head is under water and returning when he comes up for a breath. We see thighs and lumpy bums, the way he does, dancing to an indistinct beat. 

Lost in Translation brings us beautiful visions of Japan. From the crowded, highly colored city squares of Tokyo, to the the quieter, more traditional regions of Kyoto. It recreates the “Alone in a crowd” syndrome to perfection, by putting its characters in moments that anybody can identify with. Two people chatter away in brisk Mexican while they share a sauna room with Bob. Director Sophia Coppola makes the excellent choice of not giving us any subtitles, so that we too are lost in translation. There's a beautiful irony in the way Charlotte nods while the doctor examines her x-ray and explains in Japanese what's wrong with her toe. Or the evening she spends in a video-game parlor, with people playing among the lurid colors and kitschy songs. Its these beautiful moments that drive home the point of the film.

Of course, Lost in Translation is about language. If the true purpose of language is to convey meaning, what happens to us when we are denied any meaning? It changes the way we see and feel and taste and navigate our world. And the only way you can keep yourself from getting lost is by pulling down a few walls.

Paris, oh how much, Je T'aime!

 
Paris Je T’aime (Paris, I Love You) is a film about just that: Paris and love and everything in between. The film is an ensemble of eighteen short films made by different filmmakers, each with their unique perspective on love and what is known as the city of love. These films represent eighteen of the twenty arrondissements (districts) in the city and depict a variety of characters across races, nationalities and language groups. The film is both segmented and integrated beautifully by establishing shots of the different arrondissements in the city.  The short film is a powerful medium and the filmmakers use it to the hilt to put forth a premise, raise questions and allow the viewer to reflect without taking away from the over all experience.

Dissecting every one of the eighteen films in this review is hardly possible. However, there are a few that caught my eye that I would like to discuss in detail for their innovative and superior storytelling. A personal favourite is Parc Monceau by Alfonso Cuaron. 

 The film opens at the beginning of a long street where a young woman and a much older man are having a conversation. They both talk about a certain “Gaspard” who wouldn’t approve of their meeting and as an audience we automatically begin to fill in the gaps. The director involves us so much in the conversation, we assume the obvious and the director smoothly proves us wrong with a surprise ending. The beauty of Parc Monceau lies in how it easily pays a tribute to the legacy of French cinema without distracting from the action of the film. The entire film is in the form of one long take where the camera captures the two characters in conversation using one deft tracking shot, paying instant homage to the style of French New Wave film makers like Goddard and Truffaut. It also bears in mind the French legacy of mise-en-scene and as the two characters walk past a video store in the street, we see posters from films by other filmmakers from Paris, Je T’aime. 

Another film that eloquently interprets the overall theme is French animator Sylvain Chomet’s Tour Eiffel. Although the film is shot in live action, it makes apt use of visual effects to tell the story of two mimes falling in love with each other while in prison. Chomet makes use of several dissolves and elliptical editing to emphasize the comic-book style packaging of the film and ambient sounds make the entire pantomime seem tactile and real. This silent film is an excellent example of the scope of cinematic storytelling. Hippolyte Girardot and Yolande Moreau do full justice to their roles as mimes and bring the imagined physical worlds of their characters alive.

Tom Tykwer’s Faubourg Saint-Denis is another unique interpretation of the theme portraying a romantic relationship between a blind young boy William (Rufus Sewell) and an aspiring American actress Francine (Natalie Portman). The transitions in their relationship are captured beautifully by both metaphors in the dialogue as well as in the action. Their relationship is compared to the changing seasons and  we watch as the two of them move physically apart from each other until there is no “them”. Tykwer uses low speed shots and elliptical editing to augment William’s oral storytelling style.

Joel and Ethan Coen’s Tuileres is a fine representation of the outsider’s experience of Paris. The filmmakers cleverly cut subtitles to make the non-French speaking audience party to the perceptions of a paranoid tourist in Paris. The film ends with a beautiful B-roll of lights going out in the Parisian streets that contradicts the very first line of the film: Paris is the city of lights. Gurindher Chadha’s Le Marais, Gus Van Saint's Loin du 16e, Chris Doyle’s Porte de Choisy and Oliver Schmitz’s Places des Fetes paint a cross racial picture of Paris in different ways. Vincenzo Natali’s  Quartier de la Madeleine makes a fun new twist on the vampire romance. Packaged in the B-grade film noir style, Natali uses VFX and (heart shaped) iris shots to make the film seem comical. Pere la Chaise, Pigalle, Quartier Latin and Bastille take an interesting look into long-term relationships and the latter has an exceptionally touching narrative. 

Finally, Alexander Payne’s 14e Arrondissement finishes the film with a gorgeously subtle performance from Margo Martindale capturing the experience of a single American tourist in the city of love. Her concluding lines, “…That was the moment I fell in love with Paris and the moment that I felt that Paris had fallen in love with me” have the power to move you. The film ends with a montage that connects the characters of different films to one another, pulling them all into one unifying thread.

Paris Je T’aime proves to be an interesting experiment in filmmaking. The format of the short film has clearly challenged the filmmakers and they explore loneliness, love, attachment, nationalism, belongingness, youth, passion, marriage, art and various other ideas through the visual medium. Taken together the films are much like the city they’re inspired by: a melting pot of cultures, arts and perspectives.