Dir. Sofia Coppola
Love blooms due to circumstance. You might think that's harsh, but it's true. Think of the love of your life, if you have one, and ask yourself - where did you meet? Say you work at a hospital and that's where you met your soul-mate, a doctor working in the cardiovascular clinic - isn't that massively lucky, that the perfect person for you worked two-flights down some stairs? We all know deep down (or not so deep down, it depends on your outlook on love and relationships) that 'soul-mates' and 'true-love' are all bullshit, but it's our way of expressing and romanticizing our profound love for that special someone. Tim Minchin's If I Didn't Have You sums this up completely, and what I love about that comic piano piece is the affection it has for this stupid biochemical process we call love.
Lost in Translation has love bloom between two people, but only because of their meeting at a particular place - a physical place in the world, Tokyo, and respective places in life's journey. Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) has come along with her husband, John (Giovanni Ribisi) and spends her time mostly in a hotel room and tentatively exploring the foreign culture of Japan. Bob Harris (Bill Murray) is an American actor who is cashing in on his career fame to film a Japanese whiskey commercial. Both Charlotte and Bob are married, and both are disillusioned about the entire process, despite their differences in age. Bob remains married out of obligation, and for more than anything out of a desire to see his children grow and prosper, with his acting being a means of funding this prosperity. Charlotte is younger, just out of college and while this life-style should be glamorous, the wife of a jet-setting celebrity photographer (admittedly, a fairly low-rent one), it isn't what she desires, and in all honesty, she doesn't know what she desires.
Early in the film, Coppola front-loads images of Bob as physically out of step with this foreign country. He looms over the naturally shorter Japanese population, and is routinely bowed at to his own discomfort as it's clear he both doesn't know how to respond, but also doesn't feel he deserves to be bowed to. In one of the best scenes, he is instructed by the Japanese director (Yutaka Tadokoro) on how to perform the whiskey advert. The director speaks for a good thirty seconds a pop, and yet the interpreter (Kei Takyo) only relays the simplest of commands, and it is clear that something is being (*title drop alert*) lost in translation. The object for this entry is symbolic of this profound displacement that Bob and Charlotte feel. It's simple in the scene, Bob goes to shower, and the shower-head is set far too low, and even with adjustment he has to stoop to wash his hair. The very location is not made for someone like Bob.
Yet, it is only in Tokyo, and only at this point in both their lives that Bob and Charlotte could connect. If they met in a similar situation in America it just wouldn't be the same, as the very place they inhabit seems to call to both of them, they want to break free in this brief respite from the 'real' world that is their lives, and dive into something new. Of course, this is always more fun with someone new. Harris is played to absolute perfection by Murray, and it's his best role, written specifically for him by Coppola and quite rightly so as he seems to be Bob Harris in every moment he is on screen. They say the secret of acting is reacting, well here Harris, and ergo Murray, is constantly reacting to the very location, with wry humour-as-defense-mechanism and a sense of loneliness.
Charlotte reacts to people, her husband who loves out of obligation, and who clearly wants to spend time with film-star and old acquaintance, Kelly (Anna Faris). There is never an air of affair here, to the film's benefit, it is simply a desire by John to suck-up to the 'glamour' associated with his job, despite Kelly being vapid and pure Hollywood. What I love about Coppola is that she's never overly critical of any one of these characters, we understand that John and Charlotte are simply mismatched for example. There's a moment I'm profoundly glad for late in the film where Kelly is seen performing karaoke at the lounge-bar of the hotel, a location central to the meeting of Bob and Charlotte, and the vapid dinner scenes Charlotte had to endure where Kelly bangs-on about diets and other things inane. Kelly performs karaoke to an uninterested bar, in a language they won't understand, and what we feel is pity. This 'great' actress is just as out of place as Bob and Charlotte, and just as alone, and it's Bob and Charlotte who've found something greater than a career high/low-light on a press tour, as Kelly is experiencing.
Bob and Charlotte explore Tokyo together - going to karaoke bars with the locals, bars with friends, even a visit to a hospital and as the nights go on, the two feel what can only be described as love towards one another. There is no lust, no passionate love-making, but something all-together deeper, a connection of soul only achievable in that particular place. Charlotte likely knows of Harris as an actor, but it is never brought up, and there's no imbalance in power roles, despite perhaps the wisdom of age. The closest thing to an 'imbalance' is in fact their height, and at one point as Charlotte helps Bob put a t-shirt on, he comments "You're too small" to which the reply is "You're too tall". They are two people who should not bond, should not click, and should not really have met, but opposites, even in something simple as height, attract. The two know that their connection comes with a time-limit, as the two will return to their respective wife/husband and carry on, whatever that may bring.
The famous final scene leaves the final words of their relationship to the viewer's interpretation, but we know that the two will separate, and yet it is only by this separation that their relationship has any poignancy, indeed, it's likely Charlotte only approached Bob as she could assume that both he and she would not be here forever. Their relationship began as it ends, a transient thing, but one that the two will never forget (is that what he whispers in her ear?), and one that I believe gives both a passion to find true love that's sustainable. For Bob it's likely his children, but for Charlotte, it's hopefully another man, and it's thanks to this relationship that she will realize what has been missing from her relationship - true love.
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