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.