Lost in Translation






After watching Lost in Translation, while I do think that the movie was very well-made and the cast did a good job with their characters, I did not truly enjoy the film. Along with what seemed to be a large part of the class, I found the film was a little too dull and it felt slightly lethargic. I think part of the reason I did not enjoy the film was the age gap between the actors themselves as Scarlett Johansson was 17 for most of the filming and turned 18 around the time the film premiered. 

The opening credit scene was certainly a part of the reason I felt this way, as it was intentionally long and awkward. However, even though I personally did not feel the scene was necessary, I can understand the reasoning Sofia Coppola might have had behind putting that as the opening credit and tackling the major question many people likely had about what type of gaze she would utilize being the writer and director of the film. She might have felt others wouldn't take her work seriously if she strayed from the male gaze however, I think if a film is truly well written, portrayed, and directed you shouldn't have to resort to using the degrading and dehumanizing lens. 

In terms of the story, both the characters Bob and Charlotte are depicted as feeling lost while they are abroad in Tokyo, Japan. They end up crossing paths at their hotel bar, late at night and start talking. After a few more chance encounters, Charlotte invites Bob to a party with her friends. The next day they go around Tokyo and end up in his hotel room, talking about how Charlotte feels stuck in her life, Bob telling her she's not as hopeless as she feels. On the day of Bob's flight, they say goodbye, but later from his taxi, he sees in her the crowd, chases her down, kisses her, and whispers something in her ear as a final goodbye. What Bob said is kept from the viewers to leave us wondering what he says as an official goodbye and create an almost open-ending to the film where the viewer can create an intuitive leap as to where they would like the story to go. This ending scene makes me uncomfortable just as the opening scene did, seeing as in the film they have quite a large age gap for someone in their mid-twenties, and especially how Scarlett herself was still underage at the time of filming. Overall, I think I had a hard time staying invested in the film and an even harder time noticing any uniqueness Coppola brought to the film because of how much I disliked the entire situation that the film was created to romanticize. 

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