Written: 4/5/2004

SPOILER WARNING:  IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED LOST IN TRANSLATION YET AND YOU PLAN TO, DO NOT READ THIS UNTIL AFTER YOU WATCH THE MOVIE.  WRITE BACK AND LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK.

I watched Lost in Translation about three times this weekend attempting to understand why the movie has me so completely and gorgeously wrecked and to try to understand what exactly it is that I am feeling.  As I am writing this sentence, I am still not clear about that.  Thus, I am moved to try and write my way out of this mess.

I can only describe the way I feel as the sort of heartache that comes along with mourning the death of something beautiful.  Perhaps death is not the right word' maybe a better way to describe it would be the uncertain future of it.  Because we really don't know where the story goes after the credits start rolling.

In the scene just before the movie ends, the two principal characters, Bob and Charlotte, get an unexpected bonus meeting with one another where Bob holds her close and whispers something profound into her ear, which gives her hope, inspiration, or relief.  They kiss and then part company occasionally turning back to look at one another and as they do so, they smile contently.

We are left to assume what was whispered and whether they will ever see each other again.  I took the whisper to be a final expression and acknowledgement of what they had felt for one another.  I also feel like they will see each other again.  I don't know quite why, though it is probably the glimmer of hope and contentment about the two characters as they are parting. 

We don't get to know either way but we all know in our hearts what we want to happen and this may be different from person to person.  Musicians do this all of the time with their music.  In songwriting, this is achieved by leaving off the last note in a song that desperately wants resolution.  But I don't know if I have ever felt heartache quite like this over a song with a missing final note.

My question is, what is it in the human psyche that can't be contented to know that these two very lost people found peace, love, and understanding in each other for a few days without having consummated their affair and will have beautiful memories forever?  Why do we need so desperately to know that they will be with one another? 

It seems that when you throw all of the practical elements of life at relationships, they simply do not age well.  So why should we care whether they get to be together so that their relationship gets its fair chance to go stale?  Or perhaps more importantly why is it that we believe so deeply that a relationship such as this one will never go stale?

This is a perfect example, if I can borrow a phrase from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, of 'poetic faith' which he describes as 'that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment'.  Vonnegut claims you cannot enjoy poetry or prose without 'poetic faith'.  Tack on movies like Lost in Translation to that list. 

So I assert that this 'poetic faith' is at play in my belief that that relationship will never go stale.  Perhaps I am so locked into this belief that I can accept that they would be perfect for each other forever.  And that would explain my heartache for not knowing whether, ever, they would get to be together again.  But also, I am challenged by not having poetic faith enough to accept that the few wonderful days that they had had together coupled with their acceptance and acknowledgement of their love for one another is enough. 

In plain old English, I have a hard time accepting that they would be happy with not ever seeing one another again ' can such intense love can be answered by anything other than to be with the one that you love most?  I am not certain why poetic faith would allow me to accept the balderdash of thinking that their relationship will never go stale but not that they could go on living without one another.

But I don't know whether their relationship will never go stale.  I don't have any real idea what is going to happen to it.  Byron says that truth is stranger than fiction, so I suppose anything is possible.  The movie succeeds in convincing you that these two people are so completely meant for each other.  The movie also implies that they wouldn't have met except for the unique circumstances which brought them together ' being in a strange land and having a miserable time of it and not being able to sleep.  They are both married but having a rough go at it. 

Maybe I'm mourning the wasted opportunity of the two of them meeting in the wrong place at the wrong time.  But, was it even a wasted opportunity?  Both surely got more than they had ever expected out of that trip.  If nothing else, they found a very deep friendship and the knowledge that someone else valued their existence very much in a world where no one seemed to be listening to what you were really trying to say.  This  resonates very strongly with me. 

And finally, I feel like I am coming to the true dirt of why I feel 'wrecked' as I do.  What I believe I am feeling is the longing for being understood on the deepest of levels, which I believe we human beings crave and is why we need human contact - why we need other people. 

I don't believe that this longing that I am feeling means that I don't already have that kind of understanding from people.  I'll chalk it up to being a residual effect from the movie for now and see where I go from here.  The overwhelming emotional impact of the movie upon me is undeniable. The long-term damage?  We will have to see.

Added: 4/6/2004

It goes on.  I have read more about the movie and gotten more perspectives on the movie and I would like to add to the body of what I am feeling the sting of how temporary things are in life - something I have not given any thought to for quite some time.  When I was younger, I used to be really sad about the thought of death because the world would keep turning after I was gone and that I wouldn't be around to see what happened next.  Last night, when I was thinking about all of this, I felt that same sadness all over again. 

In a way, that kind of captures how I feel about Bob and Charlotte's experience together.  That what they had was intense, most likely unsustainable, and that life would have to go on afterward and that they might not get to find out what happened next with one another.  I still find myself clinging to hope that they will at least drop each other a line every now and then and let the other know if it does, indeed, get any easier.

As for my feelings on death or things being temporary, I have (after a night of reasonably restful sleep) come to a kind of hope and resolution about it.  I don't know if there is a heaven and honestly the concept living forever in a heaven is just as frightening to me as the thought of fading out of existence one day.  But I do know that I hope that when you die it will be a lot like sleeping and you get to dream about the many wonder memories you have accumulated through your lifetime or wholly new things created from your body of experience but completely beyond them at the same time.

I seem to be recovering from my very mellow week following my initial reaction to Lost in Translation.  It's been interesting for me to see the different reactions that people have to the movie.  Some people react strongly, some don't.  Most everyone who has seen the movie seems to like it but that doesn't necessarily mean that it really had any greather meaning to them.

At any rate, I don't feel the same sense of loss that I was feeling earlier.  Then again, I have been doing a lot of reading and contemplating and maybe I am getting used to the idea that some very great things can only exist because of their fleeting nature or, as my friend Larry puts it, "it is what it is".  So maybe I've grown a bit over the last week.

Fleeting experiences that leave a mark seems to be a common theme among Sofia Coppola's two movies so far.  Regardless, I am still taken by how beautiful all of the pictures of Tokyo are and by how fluid the interaction between Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson is.  I really think the movie has some true brilliance to it.  In the least I am writing again.  What more could a man ask for?