I watched 2003's Lost in Translation last night. I know it'd been at least twenty years since I'd seen it last. I suppose, since I like Bill Murray and I'm an American living in Japan, it ought to be a touchstone for me but somehow it's not. I suppose because it's really more about marital dissatisfaction and the isolation of being very, very rich, two things I have absolutely no experience with.
The Japan depicted in the film is not the Japan I have experienced. I haven't spent a lot of time in Tokyo, only a couple weeks, though I guess that's more time than the protagonists of the film spent there (I think the action is set over the course of one week). The Japan experienced by Bill Murray's and Scarlett Johansson's characters is one of endless, interchangeable smiling assistants, translators, and indistinct hipsters who want to be their friends.
At its heart, I really think it's director Sophia Coppola's fantasy about dating Bill Murray, or an idealised version of Bill Murray. This is a Bill Murray who is as disinterested in female prostitutes and strippers as any average girl would be. The moment of friction in the film is when he sleeps with the hotel bar jazz singer, and it's clearly shown to be something he regrets even irrespective of Johansson's feelings on the subject. I generally had the impression that Sofia Coppola and Scarlett Johansson, at the very least, didn't form a bond as intimate as the one between Coppola and Murray. I remember a lot of people were kind of shocked when Coppola didn't mention Johansson in her Oscar acceptance speech. Coppola only had eyes for Murray.
I kind of like to think Coppola and Murray had an affair. But maybe he was always just a fantasy for her of the idealised older man. Murray was 53 at the time, Coppola was 32, and Johansson was just 17, though her character was in her 20s. I don't feel like a relationship between the characters has a future. The way Johansson regards Murray suggests someone admiring an idol and from Murray I can only infer physical attraction. The only things they really have in common is uncertainty about their married life and, I guess, cultural isolation in Japan. The latter doesn't really fit with my experience living here and, although I can't speak to what it's like to be married, this problem seems too insubstantially drawn to be interesting. Both of their marriage partners are little more than caricatures. I've never been married but I can appreciate the psychological layers in Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage. Here, I get nothing.
But Murray is very funny, especially with his improvised lines. His comedic timing is always impeccable. Johansson is gorgeous. I'm not sure why the movie begins with an extended shot of her rear end but I'm not complaining about it. I was surprised to notice she has a bit of a pot belly in the film. She hadn't yet been hammered into MCU shape and I like it.
Lost in Translation is available on Amazon Prime in Japan.
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