Lost in Translation

Sofia Coppola didn’t have the best start to her career in Hollywood after drawing criticism for her awful acting in her small part within The Godfather Part III, but she would later turn things around by becoming a pretty solid director. Being the daughter of the acclaimed filmmakers, Elanor and Francis Ford Coppola (the latter often putting her in his movies), she seemed to have the talent in her blood and released a decently sized filmography that, while not huge from a commercial or public awareness standpoint, usually do well from a critical perspective, with many examples like The Virgin Suicides, Marie Antoinette, Somewhere, The Blind Ring, The Beguiled and On the Rocks generally being well received with specific praises still being thrown out even if the reaction is more mixed. She has proven to be a director that’s worth looking out for, and the film that started her rise to stardom was the 2003 Oscar-winning dramatic comedy, Lost in Translation. Bob Harris (played by Bill Murray) is a fading movie star who is travelling to Tokyo to sponsor a brand of whisky while going through a midlife crisis caused by his failing marriage and his seemingly finished career. At the same time, young Yale graduate Charlotte (played by Scarlett Johansson) has also come to Tokyo to be with her photographer husband, John (played by Giovanni Ribisi) and is going through her own crisis of self and has no idea what her future will be like with a degree with minimal usage and being in a relationship that isn’t harmful, but definitely sin’t fulfilling. Staying at the same upscale hotel, the two meet whilst loitering around the lobby and start to bond over their shared life uncertainties. Finding comfort in being some of the few people they can connect with in an environment that they are heavily isolated from, a friendship starts to form and over the course of this short stay, the two may come to a form of realization that won’t fix their problems but could lead them in a better direction. Being met with extreme praise and earning $118.7 million globally, Lost in Translation was a smash hit for Coppola, placing her in the limelight for others to view her as a noticeable director, and while maybe not as deep or as rich as it could’ve been, is a film that does so much with the little that it has.

It’s important to highlight that this movie is more than just an idea that came out of nowhere, but rather something that came from the mind and even personal experience of Coppola, who traveled to Tokyo after dropping out of college, and felt this feeling of crisis and was attempting to find her future while trying a variety of jobs in the city. With this in mind, it sets up why and even how this film is presented in the way that it is, and how it definitely relies more on its emotional resonance and interpretative presentation rather than on any extremities that come from the plot or its characters. The budget for this film was extremely low (only having $4 million to work with), the filming period took only 27 days to complete, the script moreso contained ‘’little paragraphs’’ of experiences rather than a full-out plot, and its subdued nature and soft slower pacing makes the movie feel more down-to-earth and relaxed rather than something that grabs you by the throat and forces you to pay attention. On the one hand, you can kind of feel some of the hurdles in this department as the limited budget can show sometimes in the lack of unique camera shots, the limited cast and even some of the dialogue feeling a little simple or aimless at times (probably due to the fact that Coppola encouraged improvisation), but these qualities don’t get in the way of what really works about this film or why its been able to gravitate towards so many people. Even if the screenplay for this film was heavily truncated on the page, the actual outline of this story idea written by Coppola is actually very ingenious and opens up several interesting situations and conflicts that feel perfect for this kind of laid-back atmosphere and presentation with a hint of a existential edge; an individual feeling this sense of alienation and disconnection from the world while being in a foreign country where you can barely speak their language, two people on the opposite ends of life bonding over dealing with the same kind of emotional struggle, highlighting an emotional unrest for people that have succeeded in life from a physical perspective but lack something in the psychological department, and present what would normally be a love story in a vein that is familiar but distinct enough to be more along the lines of a quirky drama with more of a ‘’soul-mates’’ angle. Its true that the film doesn’t go as far it could’ve with these ideas and can fall a little short in its delivery with certain elements that either feel blatantly comedic in a way that isn’t that creative or a little too overly symbolic on elements that probably don’t need to be, but with what Sofia Coppola had to work with, she does a fantastic job knitting all of these elements together from a writing and a directing standpoint. This is shown pretty great in the ending, where the vagueness of the final line implements that feeling of vagueness in a way that matches the emotional and even spiritual understanding of the movie and states how there isn’t one way to get your life together, but rather it just needs to be faced and tackled in a way that best supports you and those around you.

The film barely has any characters to work with and only four actors that are recognizable to the Western audience (with their leads being the only ones of substance as people like Giovanni Ribisi and Anna Faris don’t bring a lot), so you need to write these two characters strongly in order to make it work. The characters of Bob and Charlotte really do lead the film as not much in terms of external conflicts are placed in this film, so it solely relies on both of their emotional struggles and the relationship formed between the two of them and how they work together to at least understand their own problems, and it works really well. While the opening act can be a little slow and aimless in parts, the minute these two share screen time, the movie really does click on and both Murray and Johansson are fantastic and work off each other brilliantly. This dual pairing makes for some of the best scenes in the movie, and its appreciated that it never goes down an actual cliched romantic route (although there are a few steps in that direction, but they are short and sweet), and that its not a story where either character truly resolves their issues, but rather take from this experience and try to fix what they have in their own way. Bill Murray was Sofia Coppola’s first and only real choice for this character and sent several emails and letters to the often reclusive and hard to contact Murray in hopes that he’d be attached to her project. He did agree to be in her film and its hard to imagine any other actor in this part because it almost feels autobiographical in its delivery (which in some places, it actually was). Murray is known for being a talented comedian, but does always just kind of play the same kind of character over and over again, but it feels like both he and Coppola are aware of that and take advantage of this familiarity and provide a nice enough spin to create a role that contains his usual quirks and tricks, but they are repressed under a dreary and beaten-down energy that makes it feel unique and pretty fun to see in a more serious angle. The comedic parts are fine as usual, but the dramatic stuff is actually pretty good as well and offers something not really seen from him as an actor (even being strong enough to get him nominated for Best Actor at the Oscars). Scarlett Johansson as the co-lead is also very strong, bringing a youthful but still mature and equally as lost individual that provides for a great counterbalance to Murray’s equally subdued but drearier energy.

While the film was mostly well receive back when it came out, it did receive a minor but vocal enough criticism for its portrayal of Tokyo, and how many within the community accused the film of furthering an Oriental stereotype of the country that they saw as banal and even offensive. While its hard to say that it veered into racist territories as Coppola did create this story out of the love she had for the city so it wouldn’t come from a mean-spirited place (plus most of the American side characters are equally as one-note and tropey), no one can deny that it isn’t presented in the most nuance or balanced manner, and solely focuses its comedy on pointing out the wackiness of the Japanese culture (even though the West can feature things just as ridiculous and weird). Some of it works okay like the over-the-top nature of several Japanese game show or talks show, or the extremity of certain Japanese directors, but the rest of it does feel a little unfounded, or at least not presented in a manner that feels like its offering any insightful or deep outside of ”look at the weird thing”. While it is weird that the main environment is the butt of the joke in several moments throughout the film, the trade-off for this is it is nice to see a lot of Japanese people hired in as help in the behind-the-scenes department (although that mostly came from not being able to hire anyone else in Tokyo) and that Tokyo is filmed in a very nice way and acts as a very great location for this kind of story to take place in. The glisty glamorous appeal of the city definitely brings an overwhelming presence that would make anyone feel a little threatened from a first glance, but the more down-to-earth cinematography by Lance Acord presents it in a way that feels very natural and not overly cinematic. Sometimes that can be a detriment as a lot of the shots in the film feel a little basic and like they didn’t have much other options to film with (due to their limited budget and ability to film on location because of restrictions from within Japan), but the basic presentation does allow for some of the quieter moments to have a stationary element to it that means that it doesn’t get distracted with any unneeded cuts, and there are occasion shots that are effectively filmed and even lit in a cinematic fashion that doesn’t take away from its lower-budget appeal. The music by Kevin Shields, Brian Reitzell and Roger Joseph Manning Jr. is also pretty nice, with a soundtrack that features a lot of dream-pop and indie/alternative rock which brings a mainstream but still slightly off-kilter vibe to the movie that highlights the dream-like and quirky atmosphere.

Lost in Translation is held in the hearts of many as Sofia Coppola’s best film to date and was the film that arguably helped pushed her to the status of a well-known director (at least by the standards of female director’s which were quite small in the mainstream at the time sadly). As a whole, the movie is quite well made, especially given the limitations staked against it, and it proves to be a well written, directed and acted movie that takes a small-scale production and concept and delivers it with enough emotional understanding, quiet realism and wacky surroundings to result in a solid feature film. Some things could’ve been handled better and there are tons of great ideas in this film that are really only scratched at the surface, but the good that this film brings more make it worth a watch. Sofia Coppola seems to bring something interesting to the table in any of her films, even if they don’t work as a whole, and that is a sign of a solid filmmaker.