Language in Lost in Translation
Lost in Translation seems aimless. Why is it so slow? Why are there so many scenes with people looking out car windows, drinking in bars alone, or just being sad? What is Sofia Coppola up to? It’s difficult to get at what Lost in Translation is about because it’s structure and form defy any kind of simplistic answer one might give. Some stories function as vehicles that force upon the viewer a certain reality while others present a reality that through its characters invites the viewer in a space to inhabit with their own experiences. The latter is Lost in Translation — a landscape for the lost mind.
In an opening scene we find Bob Harris (Bill Murray) in a taxi cab gliding through Tokyo at night. We see his reflection in the car window, a classic Sofia Coppola frame, that encases Bob in the world of self reflection and identity. Bob is a movie star and while he has everything, fame, money, and freedom, the world is his prison. Surrounded by the buzz endemic to stardom, Sofia Coppola continually highlights the way his struggle to communicate with his Japanese counterparts further alienate and dislocate him from the world. The advertising shoots with all of their senselessness and boredom are continually paralleled with Bob’s nights in the bar, or alone in his room watching TV, or swimming. Amidst all of this, Bob seems aimless and lethargic, performing his advertising role even with a touch of sarcasm, what’s the point?
Then there’s Charlotte (Scarlett Joahnnason) also alone at night in the same hotel, encased by city lights as she leans against a large window, holding herself. We hear conversations with her husband John, usually one sided, as he wordspills about his photography shoots. Charlotte pretends to be interested but she also is asking the same questions as Bob, what’s the point? Looking for inspiration, she visits a shrine and sees the monks praying, but afterward calls her mom crying. “I didn’t feel anything…and John, I don’t know who I married”, but her mom doesn’t understand her. “Never mind,” Charlotte replies, hanging up, alone.
The bar Charlotte and Bob meet in is isolated, darkly lit, plays mellow music (including a wispy rendition of Simon and Garfunkel’s Scarborough Fair) and overlooks the Tokyo skyline. Bob and Charlottes’ conversations begin sarcastic and witty yet slowly reveal a mutual sense of being lost and alone. They talk about marriage, Bob’s been with his wife for 25 years and Charlotte with John for two. We learn Charlotte struggles with her marriage, lacks a sense of vocation and place. She’s recently moved to LA with her husband, a place that’s strange and foreign to her. Her attempts to find purpose have results in a list of failed attempts to find a sense of belonging. “I try to write but I hate my writing” she tells Bob one night quietly. Bob is the opposite, he’s found his place in the world but it means nothing to him; his marriage has gone dry, and he lacks motivation. In a sense they’re both on the opposite ends of the same story of disillusionment, yet Charlotte is ahead of herself in the realization that marriage won’t keep you from finding yourself in a world that doesn’t make sense. It’s in this common disillusionment that Bob and Charlotte are able to communicate in a way which, unlike all other conversations in the film, isn’t lost — they understand each other. As their restless minds keep them awake into the nights, we find them sharing stories, questions, and doubts amist midnight TV and wine. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to be’’ Charlotte sighs, “Does it get easier?”.
Sofia Coppola stresses the way the landscape of Tokyo further intensifies their disillusionment. Charlotte and Bobs’ relationships with their spouses and connections to society were already strained and yet Tokyo with its foreign language and unique culture further relativizes and trivializes these connections. In a city that communicates meaning so differently, the capital T Truth questions of life who am I and what am I doing are magnified and act to further displace Charlotte and Bobs’ sense of place and self assurance.
As social beings we find who we are through the iterative reflection of the social world, particularly with the people close to us; integral to this process is language. When this breaks down we find ourselves homeless and fragmented. In Lost in Translation we find just this, two lost human beings that lack language and the ability to translate who they are to others and the social world. The lack of language (the ability to truly communicate) affects everything, specifically their marriages, and as a result affects how they see their own worth and place. “I’m stuck” Charlotte laments as she expresses what we all feel at times; coming to the end of the self, realizing the world doesn’t make sense, and that our talents and abilities we thought would give us purpose leave us empty. In this sense Lost in Translation tells the truth; it strips us of our self assurance and connects us to our deepest insecurities, finding ourselves in a world that seems more like a foreign land than like home.
There aren’t quick or easy answers here. We don’t get a formula for finding ourselves in a strange world, but we do get a glimpse into moments where the word turns from strange to familiar; in a night out Charlotte and Bob laugh in bars, sing karaoke, and share life together. It’s in this sharing that they find the world warm and connected once again, perhaps just for a night. Bob runs after Charlotte at the end and kisses her because in that kiss he communicates to her how he truly feels and in that kiss nothing is Lost in Translation.
