Perfect Sympathy in Mysterious Tokyo

Rating: 8/10 (11 July 2005)

Two lonely Americans who feel isolated from their own partners meet and spend time in Tokyo. Lost in Translation (2003) is the story how they come to be in perfect sympathy with each other in a few special days as they try to plug up the holes in their hearts.
The film is directed by Sofia Coppola (The Virgin Suicides 1999), who once worked in Tokyo and decided to use the city as the setting for her film. LiT was given many awards and received acclaim from critics and viewers all across the world.
Some reviewers, however, have been critical of this movie because of what they claim is anti-Japanese racism. They say that Japanese in this movie are portrayed without dignity, as funny, ignorant and inferior to the American characters.
I agree with some of what they say. For example, some reviewer says that none of the Japanese characters were portrayed as being human or having any feelings. I think so, too. For example, Bob is surrounded by short and similar middle-aged Japanese men in an elevator. They seem to have no feeling. As this, Japanese are described as the movie's background. Undoubtedly, Japanese in this movie are so ridiculous that some Japanese might angry.
But Sofia Coppola didn't make the film to criticize Japan. In an interview at www.greg.org (August 31, 2003), she says about Japan, "I've never been in another place where I really felt like it's another planet." I think the most important thing for her was to put two American people in mysterious surroundings, someplace like Tokyo. The movie is about feelings of loneliness and sympathy. It has nothing to do with Japan.
In fact, I think Coppola loves Japan. During the end credits, you can hear the song by Happy-End, a Japanese band interested in the protection of Tokyo's old street scene. One of Japan's famous artists, Keigo Oyamada, introduced Happy-End's music to Coppola, who liked the song at once. I think she understood not only the song's good sound but also its meaning as well. The song is her way of paying respect to Tokyo and Japan.
LiT is surely a strange movie for Japanese, but it reminds us again of the mysterious attraction of Japan.