I saw Lost in Translation by myself one chilly, rainy evening. I’m assuming it was in February 2004, since the film itself was released in 2003 (presumably in Oscar season), and it took that long for films like this one to come to the Regal Theaters in Harrisonburg. I remember feeling really shitty that day for some unknown reason. (I was twenty years old, and I felt shitty pretty frequently.) I went to see this and felt absolutely floored by it - it was the best movie I’d seen all year (well, the best movie from 2003, but you know).
I remember feeling really touched when Bill Murray’s character tells Scarlett Johannson’s, “The more you know who you are, and what you want, the less you let things upset you.” At the time I hoped very much that those words were true. I felt lost for most of my four years in college; I kept teetering back and forth between the ideas that I had made a huge mistake by going in the first place and that I was exactly where I was supposed to be. I guess you never know where you’re supposed to be at twenty, but at twenty-six you’re hardly sure of yourself, either (at least I’m not, not all of the time).
If I learned anything from this movie, it’s that it’s sort of OK to feel lost sometimes, because it’s not something that you just figure out. And that realization might not be so comforting for some people, but it makes me feel better because it helps me remember that I don’t necessarily have to have it all figured out.
And thank you for allowing me to remember my spirit.
What Tyler said. I know a lot of people dislike this film rather strongly, but personally, I’ll never tire of it. It hit such a chord with me, and still does today.
I agree with Kate, this is still, and probably always will be, one of those films that everyone should watch at some point in their lives. Especially when you’re in that place where you realise you’re not in high school anymore but strangely enough, you haven’t really had that epiphany that helps you be a grown-up and get all your shit together, either. It somehow makes you feel better about the fact that everything isn’t working out exactly the way you had it all planned out. And that scene. The one where Bill and Scarlett are lying on that bed in the hotel room and just talking? One of the sweetest, most poignant conversations between two people in a film ever. I could watch that one scene on repeat forever.
"I just don't know what I'm supposed
to be. I thought maybe I wanted to
be a writer... but I hate what I
write, and I tried taking pictures,
but John's so good at that, and mine
are so mediocre... and every girl
goes through a photography phase,
like horses, you know dumb pictures
of your feet..."
