Lost in Translation

At the end, I could not help but feel underwhelmed and heartache for Charlotte and Harris, both parting ways back into their brooding, exhausting, isolating relationships. They both share emotional trauma, overly human needs for love, validation, respect and admiration, torn from "career" dreams by their outward projections for soul searching, in really trying to heal their shame, mutually blind envy, and ambivalent plans for marital abandonment; which led them into complicated "romantic" relationships.It does not depict Japanese culture fairly if the viewer critically speculates the settings beyond the lover's plight, and juxtaposes the city, the foreign as an antagonist with xenophobia; are the overjoyed not puzzling to the depressed? Perhaps I'm granting a lot of reasonable doubt for the rude manners Harris experienced vs Charlotte.I thought sex is portrayed here as a concept that can sell since it's impersonal, i.e. strip club scene, and the sanctity exclusively lives between lovers, i.e. unseen suggested scene; singing can escape from reality, i.e. the bar they met at or the vocalist after the one-night-stand, but it's not so bad when you escape in good company, i.e. the karaoke scene after the party and street roaming; eating out with some friends to share stories or accomplishments can still be more isolating than sparking conversation with a stranger to share silence or appreciate each other's experience, i.e. bar scenes. It's an irrational rebellion of two lonely contrarians throwing bashful fits and enjoying a hayride til they collide and feel accepted. The actual antagonist is the dishonesty that misled them into their wretchedness: deceiving oneself into pursuing a someone else, a relationship or misconstrued "love", for their meaning that is not mutually committed for each others careful admiration, acceptance, and growth.I believe love should be treated with a sanctity that permits discreet levity or playfulness, and not exalted to one's purpose in life; the film fails demonstrating the latter, but excels in the former. One must learn to love their self before another, but no one is raised with a perfect definition of love, especially as the vulnerability of love makes itself privy to betrayal, and the effects. So, I believe there's a compromise, often people search for their counterparts good qualities that inspire them, and sort of "complete" their overcompensated infantile understanding of love. One could judge society, i.e. culture shock, or a loved one with circumstances happening to them, and conform to plateaus of complacency. But if someone is truly lost, i.e. a stubborn "loved" one is misleading their life, taking back the reigns to meaning and repurposing their life and counteracting their plight to dependency, that breeds helplessness, demands courage. This is what these two lonely contrarians discovered together. If you live with someone who saps your courage, and makes you feel obligated to the extent that your actions are detrimental to your wellbeing, the relationship's toxic. Same goes for career relationships: I believe Harris had a terrible job and manager. I'd bet closure would've been well-received if he had left his job.It drove me nuts figuring out what Harris whispers to Charlotte during their final farewell:"Promise me, that the next thing you do, is go up to that man, and tell him the truth." The truth is left open-ended to the viewer as a soft-world, interactive device. I imagine it's that they're unhappy and miss the nonserious, nostalgic one-to-one vulnerable connections or dates, they once had with their younger selves. Harris reveals this in his intimate talk with Charlotte while they're both staring at the ceiling. Appreciation of each other's experiences, hurt and joy, are unequivocally lacking.This is what I think Harris wants to tell his wife, and has learned from his marriage; the need to impart helpful wisdom before Charlotte sinks as deep and becomes obligatorily-entangled as he has is what goads him out from the limousine, out of his ignorance for love, and shines hope into her quest for love and meaning. He does not "encourage" her or say I love you, he inspires and empowers her purpose, free from love for someone else, to find love for herself, decide and act contrary to her current "lover" for her own wellbeing. If people are storytellers, the easiest story to tell is the truth, especially when love turns awry. Main take-aways: Separate from people with toxic behavior. Don't put all your spiritual eggs into the romance basket. Diversify purpose with fulfilling work. Reaping benefits follows, but a hayride with a stranger may help if you've fallen short of the romance basket rule. Good messages.

After watching "Lost in Translation" the thought that most stuck out in my mind was that this was Sofia Coppola's film. A lot of the talk about the film before the Oscars was about Bill Murray's performance, especially after he won the Golden Globe, but I did not think it was his best work. I would still insist that it was "Groundhog Day" where he displayed the greatest range and had his most heartfelt moments (i.e., the last night with Rita). As for Scarlett Johansson, "Lost in Translation" was not even her best performance of 2003. That would be her role as Griet in "Girl with a Pearl Earring." This is not to say that the performances by Murray and Johansson in this film are not excellent, but simply that both have done better.However, I do not think you can say the same for Coppola, since "Lost in Translation" is the second major film she has written and directed, the first being 1999's "The Virgin Suicide." The key difference is that this time Coppola is doing an original story and not an adaptation. The story is about two lost souls who meet in a Tokyo hotel and spend the night together, but not in the convention meaning of the phrase. Murray is Bob Harris, a movie star who has come to Japan to make a series of commercials for Suntory whiskey for big bucks, and while this keeps him far away from his wife and kids his phone calls home suggest his marriage is as much an obligation as this gig. Johansson is Charlotte, who has been dragged by her photographer husband, John (Giovanni Ribisi) on an assignment and is left to entertain herself while he is running around taking photographs of some minor Hollywood starlet (Anna Faris), and perhaps doing more.Our expectation is that Bob and Charlotte are going to end up in bed together, but Copolla is playing with our expectations. After all, two people can cling to each other through psychological intimacy as well as the physical. These two people are also in the middle of a neon colored alien environment with the late night Tokyo of karaoke bars and pachinko parlors. The dark hotel bar becomes a sort of womb that these two characters have reentered and are going to emerge from at the end of the film changed in some way that Coppola, in a masterstroke, decides not to share with the audience. Bob and Charlotte have their own lessons learned from this experience and Coppola leaves it to the audience you draw their own conclusions."Lost in Translation" is a meditation, and for those who have not been married or who have never been a stranger in a strange land the realities of this fictional tale may well be lost. One of the reasons it stand out so prominently compared to the other films nominated for Best Picture Oscars in 2003 is that it is an intimate film while the others were either spectacles ("The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" and "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World") or larger than life stories ("Mystic River" and "Seabiscuit"). But even an intimate mediation can be a jewel of a film.

This movie is based in the reality of the viewer's lived experience. You are there, in the hotel and feeling as they are, because you have likely been in the same jam, separated from your usual everyday life and feeling like a fish out of water, unsure of your goals now and dissatisfied with your family life. Do you break free? You may feel like it but respect your responsibilities and commitment to your family. The affection or lust your feel for someone you can relate to and confide in is kept in check. So, it feels even stronger as you try to hold it back. When you sense it is mutual, it comes out more and you find yourself doing things as if with no will of your own, but by the compulsion of love, as when Bob asks the driver to stop the car and let him out. The final whisper was so touching, because you knew they had a plan to stay connected somehow, and that's all that matters; they sealed their connection as solid, in some capacity; they each had an out for their marriage now.