“…even when I’m surrounded by other people:” the lazy ennui of Lost in Translation
Like so many leading figures in Hollywood and other industries, Sofia Coppola played the boys’ game so she could get ahead and be considered a member of the fraternity.
Lost in Translation is full of tender, sensitive exchanges between its two lead actors — Bill Murray is heaven as always, and Scarlett Johansson startled me with a gorgeous and generous performance — but it is just as prone to cultural, racial and sexual exploitation.
The opening shot, for example, is a sustained take of eighteen-year-old Johansson’s posterior: lying in bed, clothed in an indiscreet, see-through panty. I’ve already read a couple of scholarly opinions that claim this moment is an homage to Godard, or that its lengthiness aims to disrupt traditional cinematic representations of time, or that it’s an example of the female gaze.
To my eyes, it is Coppola’s reflexive attempt to win over any male audience members who might otherwise have doubted her directorial integrity. The shot is a tease; it’s not the female gaze in the sense of showing female desire, so much as it’s the female gaze aligning itself with the desires of chauvinistic viewers.
It is a promise: “Keep watching, and I’ll give you something that you want to see.”
I don’t believe that any of this was conscious, but Coppola staked her place at the Academy Awards luncheon table by showcasing women’s bodies (e.g., the strip club scene) and by leaning on feeble stereotyping of Japanese people and culture: Murray’s character being two feet taller than everyone else in the elevator; the swapping of “r”s and “l”s in speaking English; Johansson’s Charlotte finding moments of touching yet nonetheless predictable tranquility through ikebana and visiting a pagoda, etc.
Overall, Japanese people here serve as a backdrop to a May-November, white romance. Ms. Coppola has expressed shock at others’ allegations of racism, claiming: “I just love Tokyo and I’m not mean-spirited.” Which goes to show how deep-rooted and persistent racism becomes once it’s been taught to somebody.
I’m sure that Sofia Coppola felt she was filming an ode to Japan, but what she fails to realize is that Japan is more than just her experience of it.
Lost in Translation is a lovely idea for a movie padded with, from a dramatic standpoint, inconsequential and, from a human standpoint, offensive Orientalism. Even the side white characters are two-dimensional: Anna Faris’ dumb blonde movie star and Giovanni Ribisi’s oblivious photographer are clichés beloved of the SoCal social set to which Ms. Coppola belongs.
She takes aim at the easiest targets. Lost in Translation is born of a smart concept yet cannot stand firm in its premise for ninety minutes without resorting to cheap amusement or by appealing to a paternal ego.
