Big in Japan (Lost in Translation)

Many of us have been away to summer camp; spending weeks with friends in a strange or unfamiliar home away from home. When the time comes to leave there is always a saddening moment when we realize that we don't want to go back, wishing that things could stay perfect just the way they are. Camp for me was always an escape where I could delve into life without any constraints. For some odd reason, these feelings were recreated when watching the final few minutes of Lost In Translation. Bill Murray's character comes to Japan, from what we pick up on very quickly, as some sort of mundane, necessary business trip that he has to put up with for the week he spends in Tokyo. For most people flying half way around the world would be seen as some sort of escape from the usual norm... Yet between moments of a Japanese Director screaming in your face and being tormented by your wife from another continent about carpet colors, Bob Harris is nowhere near "free". I believe that it was only when he met Charlotte did he see a reflection of his own constrained and dwindling life. These two new friends explored, experienced and took in the world around them in any which way they wanted to. There were no odd reasons for these feelings that reminded me of childhood freedom, in fact it has nothing to do with being a child. As slow paced and uneventful Lost in Translation could be at times, the film carried a message that it's important to look at the world and people around you, and to see what it and they can offer you besides the life you already have.