Lost In Translation

I watched Lost In Translation on the Friday after it was released. It touched me so deeply that I went to watch it again on Saturday. It was even better the second time, and I strongly considered watching it again on Sunday. I almost did. If it weren't for the fact that it is only playing at out-of-the-way theatres, I would have. But I don't discount me going to watch it again before I leave, or when it opens in the UK.

It is a strange and dramatic coincidence, but the issues the movie is about are the same issues that have been uppermost in my mind for the past weeks. The movie is about love, and transitions, and intimacy, and loneliness, and manages to explore each one in ways that I am so painfully familiar with and bring new revelations to me for each.

The beauty of the movie lies in the silence. The movie has much less dialogue than we've come to expect from a typical movie. Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray actually spend a substantial amount of time together, yet it's remarkable how little dialogue they actually have. This forces us to look at the characters- and observe their glances, quirks, frowns, and smiles to discern how they truly feel and think. More often than not, it is what is not said that is so much more important than what is. The bulk of their scenes consist of silences in which the entire span of their relationship -- their semi-awkward meeting, their recognition that they want to spend time together, their growing sense that there is a mutual need that each fills for the other -- is reflected on their faces and in their actions.

In contrast to their relationship, the scenes with Johansson and Giovanni Ribisi (who plays her husband) are stuffed full of dialogue, and yet there is no connection between them. Ribisi rambles on at great speed without actually saying much, and the only time they seem close to connecting is when he quietens and looks at her. Anna Faris, playing a bubbleheaded movie star to hilarious effect, talks constantly and says nothing at all; the director of Murray's commercial spends thirty seconds of dialogue, punctuated with wild gesticulations and exclamations, to say "turn your head to the right"; and most poignantly, Murray's sad phone conversations with his wife -- words can't bridge the distance when personal contact is absent. He loves his wife and loves his children- but words cannot make up for what he has with Johansson, an intimacy built not on dialogue but on their eyes, expressions, gestures, and smiles.

This is underscored by how what ostensibly is the most romantic dialogue of the movie being inaudible to the audience. And yet, doing so is entirely appropriate. Johansson and Murray have shared so much of themselves with us, and it's only right they be allowed to share just one thing between them, and them alone.

Along with intimacy, this movie is about loneliness. It's also a reminder of the sad fact that everyone, once they shut the door to their room and sit down and are disconnected from the world, get lonely on their own. It's about our fear of that situation, and about how we are interconnected members of society, and we need other people, and we reach out to other people irrespective of who or where or when just to avoid being alone.

More than just being physically alone, Murray and Johasson play characters who are in stages of their lives which are undergoing transition- painful transition- and feel lost in a world in which everyone else seems to know where they're going and what they are doing. They are searching for meaning, for a sense of purpose, and until they come upon one they are adrift and confused. Murray's character is undergoing a midlife crisis, a once successful actor now past his prime and fading from the scene, watching as his wife busies herself with their family and his children grow up and he loses control of them. He does the commercial for the money, when he feels he doing a play off-Broadway for nothing would be a much better use of his time. Johansson's character has just graduated from Yale with a degree in philosophy, and while she is clearly intelligent and above average, doesn't know what she would be good at. She's searching, and is grabbing at straws in her attempt to find herself (Her character's observation that every girl goes through a photography stage is astute, accurate, and more evidence of the fantastic writing by Sophia Coppola). Unlike her husband, who has a sense of purpose and clear success in his chosen field, she is lost. She is happy for him but envious of his direction and purpose, and sits in her room listening to self-help CDs trying to figure out herself.

Intimacy vs. distance. Looking in someone's eyes vs. talking to their voice over the phone. Connection vs. Loneliness. Having a person or group of friends you love and who love you back vs. sitting alone in a room in a foreign, bustling city. Transition and a sense of being adrift vs. Purpose and a sense of direction. Being lost and uncertain and spending your days trying to decide (or discover) who you are or could be vs. having made a decision and devoting all your energy to doing the very best you can in your chosen field.

All of these things I have seen and/or felt in the past years, most keenly in the past month, not just from myself but also from people important to me, people I love. The most truly amazing thing about this movie is how it encapsulated all these things which were happening to me, played them out in front of my eyes, and taught me a little bit about all of them and about myself, and how it arrived right now, at this point in my life. At the end of the day, it's just a movie, but it's amazing how someone miles and worlds away can write something which reaches out to you and holds up a mirror to your life. That, quite simply, is genius.

I could feel at the time
There was no way of knowing
Fallen leaves in the night
Who can say where they're blowing
As free as the wind
And hopefully learning
Why the sea on the tide
Has no way of turning

More than this-there is nothing
More than this-tell me one thing
More than this-there is nothing

It was fun for a while
There was no way of knowing
Like a dream in the night
Who can say where we're going
No care in the world
Maybe I'm learning
Why the sea on the tide
Has no way of turning