Lost in Translation

We saw the trailers for Lost in Translation before we came to Japan, and of course we were somewhat interested given the relation between the subject matter and our plans. We never got around to seeing it, though, and for a while we pretty much forgot about it. Our interest was revived by a couple of (negative) reviews, accusing it of portraying Japanese people in an offensive manner:

Totally lost in translation
Bashing Japan: People Love It!

Well, now we've watched it, and I've just visited the movie website and discovered that it's up for 4 Academy Awards (picture, director, screenplay, actor), and has already won 3 Golden Globes (picture, actor, screenplay--not that anyone takes the GGs seriously).

Let's begin with the awards. By no means does the movie deserve the awards it has won/been nominated for, except (maybe) for best actor.

On the topic of Bill Murray, I'm quite in agreement with the second review above: apart from some cool shots of Japanese land/cityscapes, he's the only really good thing about the movie. His lines are delivered as wryly as ever, he still has a talent for physical comedy, and his melancholy is so thick and tangible you could almost cover your walls with it and use it as insulation in the winter (insulation not being particularly popular in Japan, y'see). (Too bad he didn't have better lines.)

Turning to the other lead (just for laughs), Scarlett Johansson's acting is alternately mediocre and lukewarm. There are many scenes--many long scenes--showing her posed in a sad little pose (typically by a window, with no pants on). Problem is, all her poses are very obviously poses. As Kate pointed out, you can see the thoughts running self-consciously through her head: Do I look OK like this? Is this pensive enough? I think I look especially sad with my head tilted just... so.

Of course, without two strong leads, the relationship at the focus of the movie is left lacking.

What's left? The theme of displacement, alienation, culture shock. As it happens, this is a favourite theme of mine--so much the worse for this movie. Here's what I figure:

A) To pull this sort of thing off well, a work must be very frank and open about the shortcomings on the side of the character being culture-shocked: the blindspots in sensitivity, the areas of psychological rigidity that, from within, prevent a person from coming to an understanding with a foreign culture.

B) To pull it off to a degree of minimal acceptability, a work must give an accurate and even-handed portrayal of the culture doing the shocking.

(For good examples of both A and B, I suggest the novels and non-fiction of V. S. Naipaul, in which displacement is featured regularly. As for movies, Nowhere in Africa comes to mind--this one won an Academy Award, and deserved it .)

Easy one first: LIT did not play the culture-shock card well. Murray's character Bob (through whom the theme of culture shock was primarily played) exhibited numerous points of insensitivity. And these were not treated frankly, they were not portrayed as shortcomings of any sort--rather, they were used as humourous schticks. You mean, Japanese people tend to mix up Rs and Ls? How cutting edge! "Me so solly!" Even more telling than the cheapshots he makes is the fact that this guy, with no other career to speak of, is paid two million dollars to work in Japan, but still can't be bothered to learn just a little bit of basic Japanese, or make any effort to figure out the Japanese accent--pure class.

OK, now for the hard part. Did the movie give an accurate portrayal of (contemporary) Japanese culture, or was it (even apart from the throwback language gags) an exercise in Japan-bashing?

Not always. Some of the encounters between the main characters and Japanese culture struck me as being more or less neutral in tone; in the party-karaoke sequence, they were actually having fun. There is a scene where an old man tries, in vain, to use Japanese to ask Bob how long he's been in Japan, and this struck me as genuinely cute and humourous.

But what we need to look at are the scenes in which some element of Japanese culture causes feelings of unease in the main characters (Bob, mostly).

Well, there's the scene with the hooker, which has to be seen to be believed. Pardon my French, but donnez-moi a fucking break. Short though this scene was, I found it sour in the extreme, and it almost closes the case for me.

There are the scenes involving language barriers. In the workplace, Bob is confronted (during a commercial shoot) with an incompetent translator, and (during a photo shoot) with a photog with mediocre English and no translater in sight. Both of these situations are unrealistic. They're paying him two million dollars. Bloody well think about it. (Furthermore, it conflicts with what I was told by a real life assistant for a real life gaijin foreign talent worker.) Outside of the workplace, our intrepid couple (to take an example) enters a major hospital, only to find that there are no receptionists with any English-speaking ability, and (apparently) ditto for the doctors. Funny, I've found more English-speaking ability at the average coffee shop. Throughout, this movie seems to go out of its way to ignore the (spotty but very noticeable) presence of the English language in Tokyo.

I'm going to stop there. In short: no, the depiction of Japan is not accurate, much of it is slanted to artificially enhance the impression of alienation, and some of it is just plain offensive. But, I'd say it is not the case (as is stated by the second review linked to above) that "Virtually every Japanese person in the film is wacky, creepy, bizarre, or plastic." It's bad, but it's not all bad. And I would like to agree with some of the movie's defenders and say that, yes, a lot of Japanese TV really is that over-the-top. (Funny, though, that there weren't any clips from the rather unremarkable info shows that always seem to be on.)

One last point: the first review from the Guardian is dead on when it points out the ridiculous contrast between "ancient" and "modern" Japan in the movie. Why didn't they show any scenes of Johannson's character paying entrance fees in order to get into famous Kyoto shrines? Or shots of the stalls hawking souvenirs and charms to tourists?

How about the years after the traditional Japanese wedding, where the traditional Japanese husband forbids the traditional Japanese wife from having a life of her own?

Would that have ruined the mystique? Yeah, I'll bet.