Lost in Translation
Feb. 27th, 2018 05:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerSofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation is a weird movie. I feel like I say this about all of Coppola’s movies, although admittedly I haven’t seen them all, but this one is weird for much the same reason that Marie Antoinette is weird, which is that it’s not so much interested in what one might call a “plot” or even in character development. It’s an exploration of a mood or a state of being, of different ways of visually representing that mood, and in this case that mood is loneliness.
“This looks like one of those depression hurts commercials,” I commented to Julie, as Scarlett Johanson yet again sat in the windowsill gazing listlessly at the glass.
So, yeah, there’s a certain element of cliche in some of the individual images Coppola chooses. The movie rises above that cliche because it commits to the characters’ loneliness in a way that movies rarely do: this is not just a transient state that will set up why the characters need this romance. They’re lonely and isolated and they might become slightly less isolated but… maybe not.
I chose Lost in Translation for this month because I’ve seen it billed as a romance, but although there are romantic elements, it’s not really a romance at all. And not just because the leads don’t get together; the leads don’t get together in Cairo Time, either, but I would definitely call that a romantic film. In Cairo Time their connection is transient and they know that it’s transient, and yet it’s meaningful to them and emotionally powerful - whereas Charlotte and Bob’s connection is far more tenuous, sometimes doesn’t even feel like a connection.
They’re not in love. They are slightly more honest with each other than they are with their spouses, but there’s no baring of souls; you get the feeling that they’re both holding back, and why wouldn’t they? They’re chance acquaintances at a hotel and have no reason to feel a deep trust in each other, and they don’t. It’s somewhat ambiguous to what degree they’re even attracted to each other.
But they’re both lonely and isolated and gravitate toward each other because of that, and to the extent that they do manage to jerry-rig some connection to each other - that’s a small thing, but sustaining for them, in this moment.
The fly in the ointment - and it’s a pretty big fly - is Coppola’s treatment of Japan. It feels like the movie is set in Japan mostly because it highlights the main characters’ loneliness to surround them with people they literally can’t understand, and actually that doesn’t bother me too much - if I were watching a movie to learn about Japan I’d watch something that’s actually Japanese, you know? And you could get the same effect by setting the movie in France or Greece or any non-English speaking country, really.
What does bother me is that it feels like Coppola chose Japan because she found the Japanese accent when speaking English inherently hilarious. There’s one particularly labored scene that hinges on the distinction between the words “lip” and “rip,” but it pops up again and again in the movie, like Coppola finds this so fascinating that she just can’t let it go. It seems small and mean-spirited.
And it makes Bob in particular look like a jerk. He’s a fading movie star who is being paid two million dollars to make a commercial in Japan, and he’s surrounded by people who are very politely speaking English to him while he’s in their country (and he clearly can’t speak Japanese a quarter as well as they speak English) so you’d think he could at least refrain from mocking their accents, right?
“This looks like one of those depression hurts commercials,” I commented to Julie, as Scarlett Johanson yet again sat in the windowsill gazing listlessly at the glass.
So, yeah, there’s a certain element of cliche in some of the individual images Coppola chooses. The movie rises above that cliche because it commits to the characters’ loneliness in a way that movies rarely do: this is not just a transient state that will set up why the characters need this romance. They’re lonely and isolated and they might become slightly less isolated but… maybe not.
I chose Lost in Translation for this month because I’ve seen it billed as a romance, but although there are romantic elements, it’s not really a romance at all. And not just because the leads don’t get together; the leads don’t get together in Cairo Time, either, but I would definitely call that a romantic film. In Cairo Time their connection is transient and they know that it’s transient, and yet it’s meaningful to them and emotionally powerful - whereas Charlotte and Bob’s connection is far more tenuous, sometimes doesn’t even feel like a connection.
They’re not in love. They are slightly more honest with each other than they are with their spouses, but there’s no baring of souls; you get the feeling that they’re both holding back, and why wouldn’t they? They’re chance acquaintances at a hotel and have no reason to feel a deep trust in each other, and they don’t. It’s somewhat ambiguous to what degree they’re even attracted to each other.
But they’re both lonely and isolated and gravitate toward each other because of that, and to the extent that they do manage to jerry-rig some connection to each other - that’s a small thing, but sustaining for them, in this moment.
The fly in the ointment - and it’s a pretty big fly - is Coppola’s treatment of Japan. It feels like the movie is set in Japan mostly because it highlights the main characters’ loneliness to surround them with people they literally can’t understand, and actually that doesn’t bother me too much - if I were watching a movie to learn about Japan I’d watch something that’s actually Japanese, you know? And you could get the same effect by setting the movie in France or Greece or any non-English speaking country, really.
What does bother me is that it feels like Coppola chose Japan because she found the Japanese accent when speaking English inherently hilarious. There’s one particularly labored scene that hinges on the distinction between the words “lip” and “rip,” but it pops up again and again in the movie, like Coppola finds this so fascinating that she just can’t let it go. It seems small and mean-spirited.
And it makes Bob in particular look like a jerk. He’s a fading movie star who is being paid two million dollars to make a commercial in Japan, and he’s surrounded by people who are very politely speaking English to him while he’s in their country (and he clearly can’t speak Japanese a quarter as well as they speak English) so you’d think he could at least refrain from mocking their accents, right?
