Lost in Translation
To be Scarlett Johansson or Bill Murray in Lost In Translation is to know what it means to be truly alone, and yet surrounded on all sides, practically assaulted one could say, by culture, people, noise, even your own spouse. There is the absolute overwhelming slam of Japan itself, it’s loudness, it’s brightness, the present but absent spouses (even when they are present) Yet the sense of isolation and solitude portrayed so brilliantly in this film is astounding. Few films capture what it means to be lost in the world, not simply lost in the literal sense, but lost in a far more profound way, which is to be lost in your own life.
Who doesn’t know that feeling of having to travel for business or even with a spouse who is traveling for business (as is Charlotte, as the lovely Scarlett is called in this film) and know what it means to be that disoriented, that out of place and having a sense of no direction. You are leaded on all sides by distant third parties, who you may or may not know bu tin any sense, you don’t know well. They are welcoming and warm, but only in that removed, corporate and ingratiating way that one encounters on business trips and other travels in which there is an artificial nice-nice built in that is premised on a few phone calls and basically, on air. It’s a little like meeting your in-laws for the first time; they play nice, but they don’t know you. It reminds me of the superficial warmth of a flight attendant who serves you a drink or peanuts or a hot meal and smiles and tells you she wants you to be comfortable (when that is clearly impossible on most commercial flights) and she’s not going to go too far out of her way, in most cases, to help you out. Christ, I remember a woman who wouldn’t let me get up to pee even though we had been sitting on the runway for two hours.
Rarely is there more behind such a smile than pure corporate hospitality, which is different from real hospitality and a real welcome or concern. More, what is missing here is that thing that almost everyone craves which is to be needed. Find yourself not needed and you’re a candidate for suicide; an act you can only go through with if you are utterly convinced that your death will not seriously injure some other who needs and loves you, but mostly, needs you.
Like Bob Harris and Charlotte, you can be surrounded by well-wishers and distant partners - spouses, preoccupied with their work or a home life that you have been firmly shoved out of, our not included anymore because somehow, it is your fault that you must work or must travel, or it is entirely your fault that your relationship is in the dumps when we all know that it takes two, and generally speaking, it’s usually the partner who is most depressed who is the least to blame. The other simply doesn’t care enough to be depressed or upset about it. They have moved on already to their whatever - that part becomes irrelevant. It is the fact of the not being upset at all in which the real origin of the problem or detachment and dissociation – that alienation may lie.
Article comments
1 - Mark Anderson
Ugh! I was glad when this movie was over. I like artsy-er movies generally, but this one was just cold, slow and generally uninteresting.
2 - Damon Muma
I loved the movie! The one thing that disappointed me was all the hype. It certainly deserved it, but LiT isn't a *hype*ery movie.. it's a quiet, personal story. It's not the bombastic talkative dude at the party who everyone knows about and is easy to like.. it's the quiet dude who sits in the corner mostly ignored until someone strikes up a dialogue and realize how cool and intriguing he is. Putting it in the world of blockbuster movies is an interesting thing, and I think it caused a bit of backlash because so many expected something it wasn't.
Ah well I'm rambing.. and yeah it does deserve all the attention because it's a fabulous piece of work. It should just be discovered on a personal level without preconceptions, not by media hype.
3 - sadi
i agree about the hype. miraculously, i managed to not hear too much of the hype as i was in one of my hibernation periods and not very social. i heard a few things though, and mostly from people i didn't like, so that soured me on the film at first. eventually, though, i wanted to see it and rented it and was expecting nothing - and that blew me away, because the film managed to capture whati wrote about above, that sense of being alone and lonliness -- i felt it portrayed that really well and that stuck with me.
in any event - thx. for reading... it's inevitable that not everyone would like this film, though; it's strong and if it's not to taste, then it will flop. that said, if it hits the right person, it will be hugely memorable.
thx. again --
sadi
4 - Damon Muma
great soundtrack, too ;)
5 - sadi
agree. i like that at the end of track fifteen, if you keep listening, you eventually hear bill murray since "more than this" -- a lot of people turn off the disc and so miss that. you have to wait a good three or more minutes, but it is there. did you find it? another friend of mine didn't know -- but overall, i love that soundtrack.
rock on.
s.