Lost in Translation
Sep. 7th, 2010 07:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
khiemtranThis was another of those movies that I probably wouldn't have seen if I hadn't been on a plane. I really liked it, although a lot of the supposed culture shock was lost on me. I had just seen Nodame Cantabile Part II, featuring Japanese actors playing Japanese, French, and Russians, all with Japanese speech and mannerisms, so my sense of "strange" needed a bit of recalibration...
It was also a little amusing that a lot of the characters' difficulties could have been sorted out with a $10 phrasebook or ten minutes on wikipedia, but I guess that wasn't the point. These people weren't just lost in terms in language or culture. And it was quite charming to see the scene where Bob manages to communicate quite well with the photographer when they manage to find a common language that bypasses the interpreter - using phrases like "Old Blue Eyes", "Sean Connery" and "Roger Moore". In some ways, that's what communication is all about.
There were also lots of amusing observations tucked away in there. The scene where the American lady recognizes Bob in the hotel lobby and calls out to him, oblivious to the Japanese associates who are seeing him off, was particularly familiar. I also had to laugh at the sight Charlotte causually glancing at Mt Fuji in the Shinkansen window as she goes to Kyoto - I've been past there four times on that route and never had a clear view.
My Japanese wasn't good enough to pick all the dialogue, but at least I could get the gist of what was going on, and nothing seemed particularly alien to me. More on this later, I guess.
It was also a little amusing that a lot of the characters' difficulties could have been sorted out with a $10 phrasebook or ten minutes on wikipedia, but I guess that wasn't the point. These people weren't just lost in terms in language or culture. And it was quite charming to see the scene where Bob manages to communicate quite well with the photographer when they manage to find a common language that bypasses the interpreter - using phrases like "Old Blue Eyes", "Sean Connery" and "Roger Moore". In some ways, that's what communication is all about.
There were also lots of amusing observations tucked away in there. The scene where the American lady recognizes Bob in the hotel lobby and calls out to him, oblivious to the Japanese associates who are seeing him off, was particularly familiar. I also had to laugh at the sight Charlotte causually glancing at Mt Fuji in the Shinkansen window as she goes to Kyoto - I've been past there four times on that route and never had a clear view.
My Japanese wasn't good enough to pick all the dialogue, but at least I could get the gist of what was going on, and nothing seemed particularly alien to me. More on this later, I guess.
