Lost In Translation.(Video Recording Review)

LOST IN TRANSLATION

Sofia Coppola (w/d), US, 2003, 97 Minutes, Rated PG. ACTORS INCLUDE: Bill Murray, Scarlet Johansson, Giovanni Ribisi, Anna Faris. DVD FEATURES INCLUDE: 'A Conversation with Bill Murray and Sofia Coppola', 'Lost On Location: Behind the Scenes Documentary', 'Extended and Deleted Scenes'.

During the brief 'Conversation with Sofia Coppola and Bill Murray' feature, audiences might find themselves taken aback. Coppola retreats behind an almost unrecognizable Murray, and allows him to do most of the talking. He essentially translates their experience working together for us. It doesn't take a translator, however, to recognize something unspoken--Scarlet Johansson might be conspicuous by her absence during this conversation, but it is possible to discern her presence in another spokes-person. Sofia Coppola is the spitting image of the self-conscious character portrayed by Johansson on screen--viewers might even do a double take at the doppelganger. We're not suggesting, of course, that the women are interchangeable or that the actress is literally playing the writer/director in Lost in Translation. Despite the fact that Coppola has conceded in interview that there are parallels to her own life, it is her imagined relationship with Murray's character that remains particularly telling. Indeed, the protective veneer of Murray's crumpled persona is on public display before we even get to meet the main characters. Whilst the film documents a brief encounter between two dislocated people, it is only Murray's character that graces the front cover. This makes us wonder, then, why the film's opening credits offers an unself-conscious look at Johansson's backside. Our first introduction doesn't sit comfortably with the rest of the film--unless we assume that Sofia intends to present its thematic concerns from the rear. It is worth noting that a pair of buttocks configures the film's Platonic conception of love, and helps to inscribe the 'origin story' it draws upon. The androgynous body part denotes a split into two, culminating in the observation that fe/males are 'a matching half of a human whole'. And as Lost in Translation's tagline urges, 'everyone wants to be found', where a soul hopes to find wholeness through another half.

Charlotte and Bob are 'two people at opposite ends of something comparable' (to quote Sofia from elsewhere). Charlotte is a philosophy graduate not sure what to do with her life, and Bob is a fading movie star uncertain as to what he's done with his. They're sense of dislocation is heightened by the fact that neither really want to be where they are. She's accompanied her husband (Ribsi) to Tokyo for a photo shoot, whilst Bob's in town filming a whiskey commercial. When Charlotte visits a local shrine to while away the hours alone, she's troubled by the fact that she couldn't 'feel anything'. What she does feel is despair at not knowing 'who I married'. Bob's wife, however, seems to know the man she's married to, and asks in a phone call whether she 'needs to worry' about her depressed and isolated husband--to which he bemusedly replies 'only if you want to' feel something towards him. Since the unhappy strangers keep running into one other in a strange land, they recognize two lost souls and ...