mongooseblog

“Lost in Translation” is a beautifully simple story of two people searching for that certain something that’s missing from their lives. Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray play Charlotte, a twentysomething recently-married philosophy graduate trying to find her calling, and Bob, an actor past his prime reduced to advertisements in Japan for Suntoury whiskey. Through the course of the movie, the two of them find that they have much to learn from one another. Both serve as mirrors for one another in that they see what was and what will be, but the paths of discovery that Charlotte and Bob embark upon would not be possible were it not for the present circumstances that bring them together and the amplification of their despondency by the surroundings of Tokyo and Japanese culture. Their relationship grows as close as is possible without breaching their own vows of fidelity to their spouses; were the age gap between them smaller and their external responsibilities fewer, no doubt would they be well-matched together.

The reward of the movie (and my favorite part) comes at the end where, after a week, they must go their own separate ways. The intensity of emotions as Bob and Charlotte both understand what they have found–that they have been found–and what they must inevitably give up is palpable as they say good-bye to each other, first in the hotel lobby and then finally in the middle of a busy street. Murray’s Bob and Johansson’s Charlotte feel incredibly perfect together, no doubt intensified by the exaggerated foreign land/foreign culture setting, but you’re not conscious of any sort of artificiality in Sofia Coppola’s writing or direction. And yet, they’re incredibly different, not meant to be together, an idea captured on screen as they hug good-bye and we see Scarlett raised on tiptoes to meet Bill, almost lifted off the ground by his embrace.

Both Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray give wonderful performances in “Lost in Translation.” Charlotte is vaguely reminiscent of Johansson’s Rebecca in “Ghost World“, but her disaffectedness is more personal and more imminent here; her search for purpose is more easily related to here being a lost young adult than being an angst-ridden teenager. Bill Murray shows versatility in playing a character much more subdued than was found in his past comedic work; his performance comes off as feeling completely natural. Traces of his comic nature can still be found and they are put to good use, further illustrating his disconnection with his surroundings without distracting from the story or becoming a sideshow in itself.

“Lost in Translation” is a very touching story, and one that I’m sure all of us can relate to. The theme is common and yet will mean different things to different people. Watch it, and read it for what you will: translation, like interpretation, is subjective and personal. You will hear what you need to hear and take home the story (and the meaning) that makes sense to you.

First, a bit of history. I started keeping an online journal* in June of 2001, though I’ve had Web presence since around ’96. I didn’t get attuned to the concept of weblogging until the spring of 2002, when I fell in with a rough crowd led by yukino. He reminded me of how fun it is to publish on the web, long after the initial novelty of it all had worn off. So it was that I abandoned the publishing services of LiveJournal and adopted Movable Type to automate management of my new weblog (it’s my only concession to automation… well, that and album; everything else is hand-coded).

That was also about the same time that I graduated from college and was getting ready to move out of New York to Pittsburgh for a research stint at the University of Pittsburgh. nycbloggers.com had exceeded critical mass, and one of the things I regretted about leaving was that I couldn’t in good faith add myself to the 179th Street stop on the F train and be a part of the growing NYC weblogging community.

So it’s about time that Chicago had a similar map of bloggers, organized by El station as on nycbloggers. Now, we’ve got two–Chicago Bloggers and the Chicago Blogmap. The former site encompasses both CTA and Metra rail lines (city and suburbs) while the latter is CTA-only.

I honestly can’t wait to see these projects reach a similar critical mass. The bloggers are out there–there are 182 listed in the Windy City Weblogs ring and I’m sure there are many more out there. The lists are pretty empty right now, waiting to be populated, but it’ll be nice when you can go to one of the maps, pull up your station, and find more than just a handful of bloggers near you.

–where “near you” is a relative term. The advantage nycbloggers.com has over similar undertakings in other cities is that the NYC subway is incredibly dense and is matched by a sufficiently dense population. So, the numbers work out in their favor. In Chicago, the El comes nowhere close to covering the same amount of area as New York’s subway. Percentagewise, a larger number of people in Chicago rely more on the buses than trains than in New York. And you can’t map bus stops as easily as train stations.

Still, I’ve marked myself down as being near the Belmont Red Line station (even though I could have just as easily put down Wellington or Diversey…it’s all the same, but the Belmont stop is infinitely more useful). I want to put down some roots, if not for myself then for my blog. And this is my chance.

* Yes, I had an “elljay.” If you find it, you get a cookie.