painfully beautiful

Rating: Null/10 (12 February 2004)

(warning: scene examples used.)

Lost in Translation's title is perfectly just that-lost. In Sofia Coppola's movie about two strangers in a foreign land, the entire plot feels like a small part cut out of something larger; the storyline seems at some points directionless and by the end, the character's problems ultimately unresolved. But that's what makes this movie so painfully beautiful.
The film starts off with Bob Harris (Bill Murray), whose shining days as an American actor are now behind him, traveling to Japan to film commercials for whiskey. Hating himself for being reduced to a beverage spokesman, the job eats away at Bob as he wishes he were still making movies. Spending most of the time at the bar, in the hotel he's staying at, Bob tries to scrounge up any relief he can find through drinking. During a regular visit, Bob stumbles upon another seemingly lost soul like him, Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson). Charlotte, accompanying her photographer husband John, feels also out of place as John works through the week, leaving her to wander Japan alone. After the two meet, they quickly find solace in each other when they both realize just how commonly aimless they feel. What makes this movie work is mainly because of how these two actors pull off such remarkable performances. Murray slips on the role of this aged character to the point where it blurs the lines of whether he's acting or just displaying himself. Murray acts out quick witted comments with his character, giving brief hints that there is so much more to Bob but that the middle-aged whiskey endorsing actor is just tired of it all and is barely balancing himself from falling into a mental breakdown.
Johansson does the same by adding such a normal, human quality to Charlotte. Some of the best moments in the film come from Johansson simply when she doesn't speak, as if her character were briefly pausing to try and prevent a stream of emotions and speculations from overwhelming her. And that's how the comedic aspect of this movie works effectively. Coppola relies heavily on the notion of culture clash to get across most of the jokes, with abundant situations of misunderstandings between the two characters versus the rest of Japan. But it's the sense of weight that Bob and Charlotte carry on their shoulders that translates into the more humorous scenes of their adventuring in Tokyo. And that comedy sticks with the audience with deep tone of sadness clinging onto each joke, as both characters make it clear that after whatever fun they've experienced, it ultimately doesn't fill that hole in their lives. It's this sense of human fragility that Coppola shows in the movie that makes it a hauntingly memorable piece. Even though she recently graduated from Yale, Charlotte feels even more directionless then ever before, resorting to cheap tapes about soul searching in trying to make sense of her life. In a critical moment, she finally starts to realize certain aspects of her life, as she admits over the phone and to herself, `I don't know who I married.' In a similar scene, Bob catches a glimpse of his previous career on the television in his hotel room, revealing all the raw feelings and missed hopes solely in his eyes as he silently stares at the screen.
Some might argue about a weak ending because the character's problems aren't resolved at all and they're stuck in the same situation as before. Yet this is what strengthens the film. Because the characters don't solve all their problems no matter how much they want to, that just makes the film more of what it sets out to be. Even if we find brief peace in other people, like Bob and Charlotte do in one another, sometimes it's not enough.
As the title suggests, the film is about the process of people trying to translate to themselves what they want out of life: only to lose words and meanings here and there in their scattered interpretation. By connecting with each other, Bob and Charlotte start to scratch off the layers and get a grasp of what they truly want. And the age difference between the characters only makes it more poignant in showing that sometimes age and experiences can't solve all our troubles. All these bits and pieces, meanings and emotions, form a solid basis in which Coppola revolves her film around. With a simple setting in a foreign country, Coppola doesn't make her characters sound like insensitive tourists but rather further brings out what Charlotte and Bob are going through.
There's so much of this deeply filled movie waiting to be defined by its superficially simplistic, but ultimately resonating scenes that it makes Lost in Translation one of the most subtly powerful movies to come along in a while and something certainly not to be missed.