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I saw Lost in Translation in a theatre filled with unimpressed Japanese people. Some of them walked out half-way through. One guy, who walked out during the scene where they are lying on the bed, yelled out (in a Japanese accent), "Start to do her, Bill!" and laughed hysterically, as he was exiting. The guy sitting next to me kept loudly slurping his drink and laughing in the incredulous way that people laugh when they are trying to convey that they can't believe this shit. Obviously the movie was not what they were expecting. But what were they expecting?
I started to think about it and realized that the experience of the movie is likely very different if you can understand what is being said. You can't identify as easily with the sense of alienation the characters are feeling, which is pretty much the entire point. So I'm glad that when I saw the movie I didn't know what was going on any more than the characters did. But, being me, and obsessive about these kinds of language-related things, I was glad to find a translation. At least to one scene. What Else Was Lost in Translation? (What about the talk show? I desperately want to know what was going on there.)
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