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12 Feb 2024 8:28:15 UTC
We Love Love: Sofia Coppola’s LOST IN TRANSLATION
Continuing on our list of offbeat indie love stories, we thought a great film to feature for our third day of loving love is Sofia Coppola’s classic second feature - Lost in Translation. Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray star in this Academy Award winning film (for Best Screenplay) about two lost souls.
A story based on missed communication through a melancholy lens, Lost in Translation highlights a unique friendship in an unlikely place. Bob Harris (Murray) finds himself in the chaotic city of Tokyo for an awkward commercial job, while battling a midlife crisis, a static marriage, and his dwindling show business career. Charlotte (Johansson) is tagging along on her husband’s business trip to Tokyo, and winds up in the same hotel as Bob. A trip that should have been romantic and carefree for Charlotte and her husband John, turns into a string of abandonment, with John fleeing to photo shoots all too frequently.
Bob and Charlotte meet at the hotel bar and instantly find a quiet comfort in each other. We see a love develop that goes beyond any possible lust. Both Bob and Charlotte are completely misplaced in a bizarre, other-worldly culture, and learn to appreciate each other as companions in a peculiar land. At the same time, they are lost in their lives, and being in a frantic and eccentric setting only adds to their anxieties. Because Bob and Charlotte are at complete ends of the spectrum (Bob has been married for what seems like forever, and Charlotte is a newlywed questioning the rest of her life) they balance each other out and learn how to navigate their own situations as a result of their improbable alliance.
The point of Bob and Charlotte’s relationship is not infidelity to their respective partners, nor is it a lusty affair (they share one kiss toward the end of the film, but nothing more). It is more so about finding security in someone else in an unknown time of life. There is an unspoken understanding that once Bob and Charlotte depart from Japan, they will never meet again. Thus, they take advantage of the significance of having each other, if for only a short period in time. Somehow their brief connection gives us hope that when they leave Tokyo and face their worries, they might just be okay.