Coppola Lost In Translation

Being lost is the best way to find oneself and what it is one lacks. In her second film, Lost In Translation, Sofia Coppola expresses the enchanted attraction between two souls, lost both in the mind and in a foreign bustling city. Tokyo, is the oriental soil from which the relationship of two occidental seeds blossoms. Both protagonists, Bob Harris (Bill Murray) and Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson), feel alienated in the city of glass. Coppola depicts the characters’ initial struggle and displacement amongst the culture and language via cinematic staging. Bob and Charlotte, after initial contact, became more harmonious with their surroundings, as seen in changes in framing and mise-en-scenè. Bob and Charlotte are both longing for something in their lives. Their search leads them to one another, an attraction between two people amongst millions of others. Humans
The opening scene of the movie reflects Bob’s inner turmoil and his sensation of dissatisfaction in life. For example, the establishing shot of the film depicts Bob in a cab, looking melancholy and entranced by his bright, neon surroundings. In the cab, Bob’s face, leaning against the window of the car, peeks out from the dark interior of the cab in the left third of the shot; the background, backlighting Bob, comes in and out of focus to distinguish Bob as the foreground, in spite of the shadows cast across the majority of his face. Shortly thereafter, the film cuts to a point of view shot of Bob’s perspective, looking through the cab’s glass. The camera tracks through Japan, shakily, mimicking not only the bumpiness experienced from leaning his head on the cab window but also Bob’s emotional turmoil. Although he is the subject and is sometimes in focus, in the shot, Bob pales in comparison to the illuminated and twinkling Tokyo