The author | the thirteen aunts of the movie
Many people's perception of the movie "Lost in Tokyo" is "contradictory", as netizens said, "it seems to say something, and like nothing, it is some emotional feelings."
In fact, although the film is labeled with love, it only records a time of chance encounters, and two strangers do not have a real love story in a foreign land, at best, it is an ambiguous flower watered by their own loneliness.
For the audience, the most attractive gaze is hidden under the fresh and light, poetic and aesthetic lens, filled with lingering loneliness and loneliness, alienation and loss.
However, it is not easy to explain it clearly in a logical way. We need to peel back the narrative and technique of the film in order to glimpse its lonely origins. In other words, it should be understood what makes them so lonely.
If you grasp this, you will not have the illusion that the film does not say anything, on the contrary, you will taste the unique charm of "Lost in Tokyo", which is still so fragrant.
Director Sophia Coppola, like the protagonist of this film, participates in it from the perspective of an outsider, and the "huge" difference between the two cultures of Japan and the United States has left the otherwise ordinary trip to Tokyo with a "complex" mark full of novelty but various discomforts.
There are many manifestations of cultural differences, the most intuitive of which is the lack of smooth language communication. The English name of the film is lost in translation, and the literal translation is lost in the translation, or the translation is unclear, losing the taste (meaning).
Due to the language barrier, Bob (Bill Murray), a former movie star from the United States, can only rely on Japanese translation work when shooting advertisements, and the existence of translations not only realizes the possibility of communication, but also brings distortion and distortion of information. Before filming began, the director said a lot to Bob in Japanese.
Mr. Bob, sitting quietly, there was a bottle of Suntory whiskey on the table, you get it, right? Emotionally, slowly, looking into the camera as if meeting your old friend, speaking lines.
When the translation is decoded, the details that look like a pretense, but are not really important, are filtered out, leaving only the blunt level of execution, "he wants you to turn around and look at the camera, look to the right."
This makes Bob feel nervous and uncomfortable, he should be able to cope with it, expressive, and he is like a fool in front of the camera.
The TV set that is turned on during insomnia, although it changes stations frequently, is just looking at it in a daze, without language annotations, and the best-looking program picture will only make people more restless.
In addition, the two cultures are also very different in their logic and psychological personality.
Japan has long been ruled by feudal autocracy, the orderly and strict hierarchy has penetrated into all aspects of social life, after the baptism of modern Western civilization, the class division visible to the naked eye is difficult to see, but the concept of hierarchy still remains in people's brains.
The Japanese who received Bob greeted him warmly and politely, each giving him a greeting gift, even in the corridors, some people bowed to him to say hello, and even arranged for prostitutes to come to the door. For Bob, who was deeply influenced by the culture of parallel structures in the United States, he was somewhat unaccustomed, and he could only selectively accept or reject.
Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson), a young woman who accompanies her husband on a business trip, is even more isolated by foreign cultures, and she either sits bored in front of the window overlooking the city, or goes on a short trip to wander around and rarely makes a sound.
The barriers to cross-cultural communication have turned Bob and Charlotte into aphasiars, like two islands of great loneliness in the midst of crowds. By definition in cultural anthropology, they are in a state of cultural shock.
Deep anxiety disorder that arises psychologically due to the loss of social interaction signals or symbols that they are familiar with and unfamiliar with each other's social symbols.
This is the most superficial source of loneliness in the film, and in today's extremely common population movement, it is believed that everyone can feel more or less empathy.
If the loneliness of being in a foreign land can still be properly discharged through self-amusement, then the marriage dilemma faced by the two is probably not so easy to deal with.
Bob's original intention in flying to Tokyo was not only to make a fortune by shooting commercials, but also to escape from the family and other more secretive intrinsic motives. He was tired of his wife's indulgence in chai rice oil and salt, trivial chatter, and he did not want to routinely celebrate his son's birthday.
Fleeing is the most convenient way to gain freedom, but Bob is not only eroded by a deep sense of loneliness, he also has to "endure" the "untimely" interruptions caused by his wife's three-way international calls and faxes in the middle of the night.
After 25 years of married life, the mediocre and boring reality has long since made him lose his passion. The biggest change comes from the birth of the child, and the first day of the angel's arrival is the happiest moment of life in Bob's mouth. But the further back he went, the farther away happiness became from him.
The wife pays all attention to the children, the husband and wife relationship is replaced by the parent-child relationship, becoming the core bond of the family operation, Bob is like an outsider on the edge, he can't find his place. And family is no longer a place where he can feel warm and happy.
Compared with Bob's helplessness, Charlotte's situation is more "painful". After only two years of marriage, her husband, a photographer, "unintentionally" snubbed her. On the one hand, he is too busy with work to take care of his wife's loneliness in a foreign land; on the other hand, he chats with other models. So much so that Charlotte wondered if she was married to someone else.
What they have in common is that they find that they communicate less and less with their lovers, and although the corners of their eyes are crawling with vague sorrows, and they seem to perceive things that have been lost for a long time, they can't tell them, or maybe they don't want to talk about them at all, but they can open their hearts to strangers.
In the film, Bob's wife has not left the country, the audience can only hear her voice on the phone, when asked which kind of husband likes to buy carpets at home, Bob always answers according to his wife's opinion, appearing extremely impatient, you casually almost his mantra.
Charlotte often loses sleep, and when she tries to chat with her husband, the response she receives is nothing more than a snoring sound that continues to sound after turning around, and with her husband's friends, she is nothing more than a different place to smoke alone.
From this point of view, the other party often plays the role of absentee in their respective married lives, and the crux of the problem is the lack of communication. Although the specific circumstances are different, the essence of the problem is the same. Director Coppola has a keen insight with her unique delicacy and sensitivity for women.
Bob did not simply and rudely refuse to communicate, but he did lose the desire and patience to communicate, Charlotte made an attempt to get care, but the husband chose to ignore the response that did not give her a warm heart.
Two aphasiars in a foreign culture, first briefly isolated by the external factor of cultural differences, and then in the marriage siege, because of the normality of acting or encountering absentees, the doors of the mind that should have been open are tightly closed, and the ubiquitous loneliness floats between primitive desires and moral responsibilities, testing their "must" to make difficult choices.
Obviously, the tone of "Lost in Tokyo" is restrained and restrained, but in the bland and fragmentary narrative, there is actually a hidden "mystery", and the biggest "reversal" is that obviously a lot of details that the two will fall into extramarital love are laid out, but they eventually go to their original life trajectory, so the unconventional setting is exactly the cleverness of the film.
And the loneliness that goes deep into the bone marrow is like the line that flies with a kite, no matter how the plot extends, it does not leave the line, and all the small "surprises" and small "accidents" are only like a breeze blowing across the face, leaving only the warm memories of that moment. The so-called loss is only lost, and behind it is still the loneliness that cannot be abandoned.
Only by stripping away the external causes of cultural differences and the marital dilemmas arising from dependence on others can we gain insight into the true source of their loneliness.
As we all know, the creation of urban alienation and loss is Wong Kar-wai's strength, and "Chongqing Forest", "Fallen Angel", "Fancy Years", "2046" and so on have wonderful presentations.
Although this film is a realistic style, there are also many poetic and romantic lens language to express the sense of confusion of wandering in any corner of the city, and in this regard, it is difficult to say that Coppola did not learn from Wong Kar-wai.
Tokyo's bustling and noisy street market can set off people's inner loneliness, the more the neon lights flicker strangely, the more the male and female protagonists are helpless, continuous insomnia, frequent access to bars, cigarettes and wine, strangers who meet in pingshui, and become the best companion for each other when they are lonely.
After being "abandoned" by his family, Bob also began to decline at work as he grew older. The double attack of feelings and careers has created the established fact of its "mid-life crisis". He neither knows how to return to the warm harbor of his family, nor does he know how to best use his residual heat.
Charlotte, who majored in philosophy in college, likes writing and photography, but she believes that she lacks talent in both, can't produce decent works, and seems to be unwilling to live the life of ordinary people, and she doesn't understand where the direction of life should go.
In short, they have encountered difficulties in their respective life stages, the so-called cultural differences are nothing more than exotic environments that amplify people's inner feelings, and the marital dilemma is only to highlight the confusion of individuals through gender relations, and the internal problem is actually the loss of self-identity, which is the source of loneliness hidden in the depths of human nature.
From this analysis, many of our doubts are naturally solved. Why is it that even if the two run under the neon lights to play the game of great escape, sing freely in the glass house, lie on a bed and talk about platonic love, but no one has ever crossed the moral boundary and fallen into the bottomless abyss of extramarital affairs, but it is just the whispered chanting of two lonely souls, starting from loneliness and finally ambiguous, and the process in the middle is called lost.
At the end of the film, they embrace their parting and disappear into the sea of people in opposite directions. And Bob's whispers, Charlotte's smile, and the cheerful rhythm of rock music all represent that the two of them have not been blindly lost in the trip to Tokyo, and life has not stopped.
On the contrary, each other has left each other with unforgettable and beautiful memories, and they will continue to move forward with their own troubles.