Lost in Translation
I saw "Lost in Translation" this weekend, which is a movie I've been curious about for sometime. It hasn't been released in Oita Prefecture, but a friend of mine had the DVD sent from Canada, so I was able to watch it at his place.

This past year has seen several American movies with Japanese themes, such as "Kill Bill" and "The Last Samurai". The Japanese domestic film industry is struggling, so the Japanese movie going public thrives on American movies, which easily outgross the domestics. Japanese people love American movies, so it has been interesting to see the buzz behind two American movies with Japanese themes.

Which is what makes "Lost in Translation" so interesting. To say there is no buzz about this movie is an understatement. It really doesn't even exist in Japan. I would never have known about it if several of you hadn't mentioned it to me. This article (which I've linked to before) does a good job of explaining why.

After reading that article, I was curious to see the movie. I was also curious about the charges of racism, as some people (like this fellow) (and this site) have accused.

As others have written, the film is not so much about Japan as Japan is just used as the back drop for a sort of pseudo love story. So maybe it is kind of silly to over-analyze the Japan parts of it too much. But that said I'm going to anyway.

I think the Japanese references in the movie I could put into 3 categories

1). Stuff that seem to come completely from left field. Like the part about the call girl. What was that about?

2). Stuff that I could really identify with. Like the shower head being too short. And the cell phones with the bizarre ring tone. And those damn election vans.

3). Stuff I could identify with but had been exaggerated for comic effect.

This 3rd category was by far the majority. Such as the Japanese mis-pronunciation of English names. Sure it was exaggerated a bit, but it was something all foreigners in Japan notice, and sometimes (as in the movie) the names of Western celebrities become unrecognizable when pronounced in the Japanese syllabary.

The Language barrier is something everyone in Japan has to deal with, as with in any non-English speaking country. It was exaggerated in the movie. If "The Last Samurai" was guilty of historical inaccuracy by portraying Samurai Lords and the Japanese Emperor speaking fluent English, "Lost in Translation" errs in the other direction.

Tokyo is an international city, and is actually pretty English friendly. My friend and I agreed that the scene in the hospital was pretty unrealistic, because educated people like doctors speak a bit of English, and would never blab on in Japanese and expect to be understood by a foreign person. Nor would the person behind the reception desk just launch into Japanese and expect to be understood.

If anything, the opposite frustration exists for many foreigners. Because of the perception that foreigners are unable to speak Japanese, Westerners who are fluent in Japanese will often complain that Japanese people insist on talking in their stilted English rather than converse in their native tongue.

But, of course, the movie was just exaggerating the language barrier for comic effect, and I can dig that.

Although the movie has been criticized for being about 2 whiny Americans always complaining about Japan, I thought even that was forgivable. When we JETs get together, all we do is whine about Japan.

Of course we JETs all understand how privileged we are here. We get payed pretty well for essentially just speaking our native language. And most of us are shown nothing but kindness from the Japanese people.

It is just that living in a different culture creates pressures. All the little things build on you. It's difficult to vent these feelings to Japanese friends, so on the weekend we JETs will often get together, and someone will start complaining about something about Japan, and before long everyone will start to vent and it will launch into a huge bitch session.

And then when it is all over and everyone has gotten everything off their chest, everyone will take a deep breath and someone will say something like, "Of course, really, I guess we have it pretty good here." And people will start talking about things they like about Japan, or ways in which Japan may be better than our home country, or even take back or modify some of the things we have just said.

And that I think is what was missing from the movie. It think it's okay to make a movie about things a foreigner would find frustrating in Japan, but it would be nice if somewhere in the movie there would have been that deep breath, and then a look at what is enjoyable about Japan. At the end of the movie one got the impression that Japan is just an horribly bizarre place that no American could enjoy himself in.

The other thing that was that there were no Japanese characters presented as human beings, or as someone the main characters could have potentially formed a real relationship with. At times the viewer gets the impression that in this huge city of Tokyo, the only meaningful relationship these two lonely Westerners can possibly form is with each other.

When you first get to Japan, you are overwhelmed, and tend to focus exclusively on, the differences. This is probably helped by prepping for the trip by reading guide books which also tend to emphasize culture differences.

And the differences are formidable. But the longer I've been here, it is the similarities I notice.

When I teach in the Junior High Schools, I look at the kids and think to myself "that was me at that age." Or "that kid reminds me just of so and so back home". Now that I understand Japanese a bit more, I can listen in on the conversations, and they sound very similar to conversations people have back home. The way someone will accidentally say something stupid, and be gently teased by every one else. The way two people will bat a joke back and forth between the two of them, each building from where the other leaves off. The way inside jokes develop, and are brought up in larger crowds, causing only "in people" to laugh.

When I'm out with Japanese people my own age, and I'm listening in on the conversation and watching how they interact, I think to myself it's exactly the same way my friends play off of each other back home. In my relationships with Japanese women, I've found I have to be careful with their feelings because they can get hurt just like American women can. Although Japanese TV seems bizarre at first, after watching it you realize it is aiming for the same set of emotions as American entertainment. I suppose that all sounds a bit cheesy when I try and put it into words, but although we all realize these things, we sometimes don't think about them when we focus in too much on the differences.

I don't want to say "Lost in Translation" was a racist movie. I think the people who made it had good intentions, and just wanted to have a laugh at some of the oddities about Japan, and the frustrations about being abroad. But from an idealistic standpoint, the movie would have been better if we had gotten just a glimpse of Japan's human side as well.

Video Version