Themes
He was trapped. ... When you go to a foreign country, truly foreign, there is a major shock of consciousness that comes on you when you see that, "Oh God, it's just me here." There's nobody, no neighbors, no friends, no phone calls—just room service.
—Bill Murray, speaking about Bob Harris[14]
The film's writer-director, Sofia Coppola, has described Lost in Translation as a story about "things being disconnected and looking for moments of connection",[15] a perspective that has been shared by critics and scholars. In a cultural sense, Bob and Charlotte are disoriented by feelings of jet lag and culture shock as a result of foreign travel to Japan. Bob is bewildered by his interactions with a Japanese commercial director whom he cannot understand, realizing that the meaning of his communication is "lost in translation" by an interpreter.[16][note 3] Moreover, both are sleepless from a change in time zone, choosing to cope with their wakefulness by making late-night visits to the hotel bar. Such feelings provoke a sense of estrangement from their environment, but they also exacerbate deeper experiences of alienation and disconnection in their lives.[4] Bob and Charlotte are both in troubled marriages and facing similar crises of identity; Charlotte is unsure of what to do with her life and questions what role she should embrace in the world, while Bob is invariably reminded of his fading stature as a movie star and feels disassociated from the identity by which he is already defined.[18]
Such experiences are heightened by the characters' contact with the city environment of Tokyo. Bob feels alienated by seeing his likeness used in an advertisement while he is driven from the airport to his hotel, and the colorful cityscape is rendered as a frenetic environment by which he is overwhelmed.[19][note 4] Charlotte feels adrift as she attempts to find meaning while wandering Tokyo,[20] and feels isolated as she peers over the city from her hotel room window.[21] The Park Hyatt Tokyo offers hermetic qualities that insulate the characters from the city and is the site Bob chooses to seek refuge from his ails.[22] These shared impressions of alienation create common ground for Bob and Charlotte to cultivate a personal connection.[4] When Charlotte invites Bob to experience the Tokyo nightlife, she reduces his sense of distance from the city[4] and the two develop a connection based on small moments together. In the little time they have together, each realize they are not alone in seeking a sense of something deeper in their lives.[23] Coppola, speaking about the brief nature of their encounter, remarked, "For everyone, there are those moments when you have great days with someone you wouldn't expect to. Then you have to go back to your real lives, but it makes an impression on you. It's what makes it so great and enjoyable."[24]
Geoff King, a scholar who wrote a book about the film, comments that the experiences of the central characters are one factor that lends Lost in Translation to varied interpretations by academics.[25] Todd McGowan reads the film from a Lacanian psychoanalytic perspective, arguing that the film encourages the embrace of "absence" in one's life and relationships.[26] He describes Coppola's depiction of Tokyo "as a city bubbling over with excess", which offers an empty promise of gratification.[27] In his view, both Bob and Charlotte recognize that they cannot find meaning in Tokyo's attractions, so they bond over their shared sense of emptiness in them.[27] Lucy Bolton offers a feminist reading, arguing that Lost in Translation evokes the thought of feminist philosopher Luce Irigaray by highlighting issues of young womanhood. She argues that the film provides a complex portrait of Charlotte's female subjectivity and an optimistic rendering of the character's pursuit for individual expression.[28]
Narrative
Lost in Translation has been broadly examined in terms of its narrative structure, with commentators noting that it contains few plot events as compared with films in the Hollywood mainstream. Narrative events are mostly focused on the development of Bob and Charlotte's relationship,[29] with few "external" obstacles that impact the central characters.[30] King notes, "More time is taken to evoke the impressions, feelings, and experiences of the central characters",[31] which represents "a shift in the hierarchical arrangement of [film elements]" that prioritizes character experiences over plot.[32] The literary critic Steve Vineberg argues that "the links of the story are indeed there, only they're not typical cause-and-effect connections. They're formed by the emotions that gather at the end of one episode and pour into the next".[33] King maintains that while the plot does progress according to a basic linear causality,[29] "If the episodic quality often seems to the fore, this is partly a matter of the pacing of individual sequences that are very often leisurely and dedicated to the establishment or development of mood and atmospherics".[31] Coppola said she wanted the story to emphasize the qualities of an intimate moment, and she did not want to impose grandiose narrative devices on the characters such as "a war keeping them apart".[34][note 5]
Lost in Translation has also been noted for defying the conventions of mainstream romantic films. Film historian Wendy Haslem writes that the classic romantic comedy assures the audience that the couple has a future, but Coppola defies expectations by refusing to unite the central characters.[4] She points to elements such as Bob and Charlotte's lack of sexual consummation as one factor that obscures whether their pairing is more romantic or platonic. Writing about the concluding sequence in which the characters make their final goodbyes, Haslem argues, "Conventionally in mainstream cinema, the kiss ... signifies resolution by reinforcing the myth of romantic love. But in this new wave of contemporary anti-romance romance, the kiss signifies ambiguity."[4] The academic Nicholas Y.B. Wong contends that the film's lack of "heart-melting connections and melodramatic (re)unions between characters" represents a postmodern portrait of love, writing that Lost in Translation is "about non-love, the predominance of affairs and the complexities of intimacy. Characters vacillate between falling in love and out of love. They are neither committed to someone nor emotionally unattached."[19] Coppola said Bob and Charlotte's relationship is "supposed to be romantic but on the edge. ... [A] little bit more than friends but not an actual romance. ... To me, it's pretty un-sexual between them—innocent and romantic, and a friendship."[36]
Opening shot
The opening shot.[note 6]The film's opening shot, a 36-second take of Charlotte's lower back and buttocks as she lies on a bed wearing semi-transparent pink panties and a gray sweater with white T-shirt underneath, as the credits begin to roll, has been another point of discussion among critics and scholars. It is based on the photorealist paintings of John Kacere[39] and has often been compared to the initial appearance of Brigitte Bardot in the 1963 film Contempt.[note 7]
Slate critic David Edelstein called the scene the only "head-scratcher" in the film, which he otherwise appreciated:[40]
The meaning of this image is less transparent than Johansson's attire, but my guess is that Coppola wants us to see the whole film as the vaguely erotic dream of an alienated young woman. She wants to make this woman's detachment from this culture, and from her own body, hypnotically sexy, and to put the longing for human connection into your bloodstream from the first frame. But I was mostly thinking about her butt crack.
It has been described it as a foreshadowing of a romance between Bob and Charlotte,[note 8] other writers have a different interpretation. Correspondingly, the academic Maria San Filippo maintains that "[Coppola] doesn't seem to be making a statement at all beyond a sort of endorsement of beauty for beauty's sake."[41] King notes that the image contains both "subtle" and "obvious" appeal in its combination of aesthetic and erotic qualities, which signifies Lost in Translation's position between mainstream and independent film.[42]
While film scholar Todd Kennedy interprets it in terms of feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey's conception of the male gaze, arguing that the shot "lasts so long as to become awkward—forcing the audience to become aware of (and potentially even question) their participation in the gaze",[43] other critics see it as inherently subverting the objectification of Charlotte. Haslem argues that "Coppola's intention with this opening shot appears to be to defy taboos and to undermine expectations surrounding what might be considered the 'money shot' in more traditionally exploitative cinema."[4] Bolton points out that Charlotte's "state of undress is not designed to be seen by anyone else, as she is alone in the room. Her solitary, meditative state de-sexualizes her appearance by naturalizing her appearance as the state of undress a woman would be likely to adopt if she was on her own."[44] Fiona Handyside elaborates on Kennedy's notion, that the stillness of the image reduces its voyeuristic appeal and "the very weight of time pulls [Charlotte] from being pure empty iconic spectacle and into the material matter of history itself."[45]
"I don't have a really good reason for it", Coppola said when asked to explain the shot. "It's just how I wanted to start the movie. I liked having a hint of the character—a sweet, young girl waiting around in her hotel room—and then go into the story".[46] Suzanne Ferriss, a film scholar who has written extensively about Coppola's work, notes that in the original screenplay, the film opened with Harris's arrival and then went to Charlotte in the hotel. Due to this change, Coppola's comment belies the complexity of the shot. Ferriss observes that the first 10 seconds lead the audience to believe it might be looking at a still, until Charlotte shifts her upper leg:[47]
... [linking] moving and still images, demonstrating an awareness of fine art tradition and a recognition that film is, in fact, a series of still images projected at 24 frames per second. Second, it highlights cinema's unique ability to make meaning through editing ... The film's opening is a bold assertion of cinema's status as an art, like the painting it references, references, or literature, which similarly relies on the audience's imaginative engagement to find meaning...
