Some thoughts on Lost in Translation (2003)

Why is your favorite movie your favorite movie?

• Why is your favorite movie your favorite movie?

• I don’t remember the first time I saw Lost in Translation. I’ve probably watched it two dozen times or more.

• Half of the times were on airplanes, where Lost in Translation was for some reason often available in the airplane movie library for a good decade or so. I guess it’s because the movie has a travel theme, and you travel on airplanes. I almost always watch Lost in Translation when it’s available on a flight.

• It hasn’t been available on any of my flights over the past couple years; now I generally rewatch The Matrix or Challengers instead.

• I’m in my late 30s, and I feel a bit jaded about travel now. But I was an enthusiastic traveler in my 20s. I romanticized the concept of travel and the serendipitous adventures and romantic flings that would — or at least could — happen while in the liminal space that is travel. That’s one reason why I liked Lost in Translation so much. That’s also why I liked Before Sunrise.

• I stopped liking Before Sunrise in my 30s; I felt like I’d outgrown it. I began to see Ethan Hawke’s character as just a pretentious, corny, pseudo-intellectual young guy, probably the same way I was in my 20s. Cringe.

• I’ve continued to enjoy Lost in Translation into my 30s. One reason was that I found the party scenes to be very realistic portrayals of fun, drunken nights out with friends, getting into trouble, running around from one place to the next, having brief conversations with a bunch of random characters, going crazy at karaoke, falling asleep on the taxi ride back with city lights in the background. I love having nights out like that. So these vignettes evoke strong nostalgic feelings for me.

• I have to note that Lost in Translation is kind of racist. It does bother me. It’s just ignorant. You can’t just brush this under the rug as “the characters are racist, it doesn’t mean the film is racist”. The racism is a choice by the director. The film spends an inordinate amount of time fixated on accents and linguistic misunderstandings for no good reason. Haha, Japanese people can’t speak Engrish, haha. Ok, fuck you.

• One of my favorite factoids about Lost in Translation is that it’s meant to be a fictionalized version of Sofia Coppola’s breakup with Spike Jonze, where Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) is Coppola and Charlotte’s husband (Giovanni Ribisi) is Jonze; presumably Bob (Bill Murray) is fictional. What’s funny is that Jonze made a movie, Her, which is also a fictionalized version of his breakup with Coppola, and which also features Johansson, this time as a fictional manic pixie AI gf. Which makes Bill Murray the manic pixie AI bf of Lost in Translation.

• Another reason why I like the movie because I can relate to the characters’ ennui and feelings of “what the hell am I doing with my life”. Bob and Charlotte both feel this way, despite their difference in age. I felt this way when I was Charlotte’s age, and I expect I’ll still feel this way when I’m Bob’s age, too. These are existential feelings that are not fixed by being in a relationship or career success.

• The soundtrack is superb. Back when I lived in California, I used to listen to it all the time while driving. The soundtrack introduced me to so much good music. It introduced me to Kevin Shields, which led me to My Bloody Valentine and shoegaze. It introduced me to Haruomi Hosono and Happy End, which led me to Yellow Magic Orchestra and Ryuichi Sakamoto. Sofia Coppola has great taste in music.

• I became a father in June 2024. It’s changed everything. It’s even changed how I view Lost in Translation.

• I rewatched Lost in Translation in December 2024. I was surprised that my interpretation of the film dramatically changed in that viewing, and I saw things that I never saw before. Here’s what I wrote:

I rewatched Lost in Translation again last night for the 1000th time. I used to think of it as the “Bill Murray as manic pixie dream man” movie; now I still think of it that way, but with some extra layers of complexity.

Bob is unhappy in his marriage, but he is able to experience youthful fun again with Charlotte while in Japan. Ultimately however, it’s an escapist, impossible fantasy that can only briefly exist in a foreign place. When talking about his marriage and kids with Charlotte, Bob says that what no one tells you about having kids is that the day the first one is born is the most terrifying day of your life, your life as you know it is over, and there’s no going back. Neither can this romance last; he has to go back to his wife and kids after the end of the movie, there’s no other way.

Bob is ultimately trying to cling to his youth, but in doing so, he’s not being a good husband or a good father. He forgets his son’s birthday; things aren’t going well with his wife; he’s just not putting in the effort; he’s running away from the problem instead. It’s actually not really a meet-cute story as I used to believe, but it’s a movie about the desperation of a sad middle-aged man who doesn’t want to grow up and act his age. I used to view the final scene between Bob and Charlotte as a romantic scene, but now I just find Bob to be pathetic and Charlotte to be naive.

• Despite this new interpretation, I still love the movie. You don’t have to like the characters in a movie to like the movie. You don’t have to like everything about a movie for it to be your favorite movie. It’s still a beautiful movie that captures a wide range of human emotion and experience.

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Thanks to Josh Lee for letting me steal this post format.