Maybe We Got ''Lost in Translation'': Analyzing Sofia Coppola's Lonely Work

Two American souls unexpectedly brought together in Tokyo.

Lost In Translation, a movie by Sofia Coppola, tells us the story of two American characters, Bob Harris and Charlotte, and how their collective loneliness in Tokyo brings them together. Bob Harris is a movie star who is in Tokyo to shoot a commercial, while Charlotte is there with her photographer husband whose job always forces him to leave Charlotte alone in a hotel room thousands of miles away from her home. They are Lost in ‘’Translation’’ as the title suggests, and they are having a hard time understanding the culture and language surrounding them, and Bob and Charlotte eventually meet each other and find solace in each other’s company. As the audience watches them get closer to each other, the inevitable separation of these two characters puts an end to the movie.

The title ‘’Lost in Translation’’ not only refers to the language but also the ideology and norms that differ between cultures, how their Western lifestyles might not translate into what they see, and how these subtle patterns contribute to the character’s feelings of being lost and disconnected within this foreign space. Bob constantly mocks the social behaviors of people around him and sometimes even attempts to copy their manners, such as bowing etiquette and formal greetings.

Lost in Translation has won multiple Academy Awards and became an important piece of work years to follow. The movie has been a target of criticism too, two Americans making fun of other people's customs and culture might have felt kind of ironic considering they don't really have that much. The age gap in the movie has been also criticized, and to even think these two characters might have something ''romantic'' feels so uncomfortable.

In his book ‘’Hidden Dimension’’, Edward T. Hall introduces the concept of ‘’infraculture’’ which in my opinion, explains a lot of the behaviours that feels problematic in the movie. Infraculture refers to the subtle and overlooked cultural paradigms and behaviors that shape human interactions and relationships. According to Hall, the cultural elements that people sometimes overlook influence how humans communicate or relate to one another. Like how our childhood affects our understanding, how certain patterns of behaviors get overlooked by us, because we have been living within that cultural environment. ‘’Culture hides much more than it reveals, and strangely enough, what it hides, it hides most effectively from its own participants.’’ (Hall, 1990) Reminds me the Europeans that would put a surprised face when me and my Turkish friends would hug them goodbye twice. I didn't know this was not a common thing. (They got used to it eventually though.)

One of the main reasons these two main characters find each other is the feeling of emotional isolation. Remember when your uncle and his kids come from Germany over the summer, they tell you how hard it is actually to live there, to survive there. You actually have it better here! They would give everything to come back here actually! These annoying remarks meet a bunch of exhausted sighs with rolling eyes, following a shout ''Just give me the damn Nussknacker and leave me alone.'' Of course, your uncle is lying, your psychological and financial struggles following a constant fear of the present and future is not what you would call a ''better life.'' But if he has those, over there, why is he still not happy? Is the money not enough?

It might be a lonely life, I would say, living abroad. Yes, having the job with a paycheck of unbeliveable numbers sounds amazing because now you're in college and too broke to pay for your coffee. You will have thousands and thousands -that's the dream-, and you will not pay that much of tax money when you want to buy the new iPhone. Also, if you're a woman or queer, there will be places that you will feel safer. But the way a lot of effort, headaches, and money it would take to run away from this place to have a little piece of happiness feels anomalously depressing. Why do we have to struggle this much to have what people already had in their whole lives?

Bob and Charlotte, would probably never meet each other in their home countries. They might have never rushed into a hospital together, gone to karaoke night or talk about life and marriage. Finding a community is not easy, and they are, as all human beings, desperate for human connection. Lost in Translation is not a romance movie, it is about two people, who will probably never see each other again, finding themselves looking for the ability to understand, in a world which feels ''more like a foreign land than home.''