Lost in Translation

Matthew Collins

Lost in Translation

Sofia Coppola’s film Lost in Translation follows two Americans in Tokyo who each suffer from the desire to connect with another person in a foreign landscape. The movie follows middle aged, washed up actor Bob Harris played by Bill Murray, and Charlotte a girl in her early twenties played by Scarlett Johansson. The two main characters suffer from lifeless and deflated marriages and feel isolated because of it. Coppola's use of the city of Tokyo, Japan amplifies this feeling of loneliness. The director highlights the fact that they are both so different from everyone in the city. Coppola shows this through many different techniques, for example; the scene where Bob is in the elevator in the luxury hotel, is filled with Japanese citizens who all appear much shorter than Bob. Another method Coppola uses to instill the feeling of isolation is language; the scene where Bob is on the talk show shows just how lost he feels because he can not understand anything the host is doing since, he does not understand Japanese culture nor the language. Charlotte feels trapped because she is in a stasis in her life. She does not what to do with her education and she is having trouble dealing with the fleeting love she has for her husband. Coppola’s title Lost in Translation depicts what the two characters feel in the film; they are both alone and detached in a city where they do not understand the language or culture but, they find solace in each other.