Lost In Translation, initial thoughts

This week's assignment is Lost In Translation, another film I love, I've watched it 4 or  times in the last week. It's beautifully shot, very soft light, like perpetual twilight but with beautifully vibrant colours. It's somewhat tempting to shoot this assignment in colour, but I don't have time to shoot and develop colour film and digital prints are just really unfulfilling.

I can't decide whether I relate to Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) or Bob (Bill Murray) more. Charlotte is lost because she doesn't know what she wants out of life, she has no direction and she has no passion. She's got a degree in Philosophy but essentially she could do anything she wanted, if only she wanted something. Bob has lost all control over his own life, he has photographers, directors, minders and his wife demanding things of him all day every day and for most of the film never asserts his own wishes. It's like he's got what in may ways is a wonderful life but one where everything he does is for someone else, a life without freedom.

I guess I feel like a hybrid. On the one hand I feel like I can do whatever I want, I have good savings, I'm a smart guy with a lot of skills and no ties so the world is open to me, but I really don't know what would make me happiest, I started trying to think about this in October, I'm still thinking and I'm still confused. At the same time it seems I like could do whatever I want, I feel stuck, I've the inertia of a comfortable life in Seattle, and the constraints of a visa that ties me to a single employer and prevents me from exploring sidelines like photography. Any significant change I want to make would mean giving up my job and my life in Seattle which is an enormous cost.

I think I want to explore this idea of paralysis and obligation, perhaps in a diptych to represent the two personalities, though I don't know if I'd prefer an abstract still life or a conceptual portrait.

The other aspect of the film I'm considering is more of a cinematic narrative, a more literal reaction to the film. Charlotte and Bob bonded because they were looking for intimacy in a lonely world, which could be a really nice mood to try and capture, the idea of intimacy in a lonely setting.
On a related note, whenever I watch this film I remember going to Japan two years ago with Ben and Anton. One night Anton stayed home and Ben and I went out on the town. Lost In Translation is Ben's favourite film of all time and he was eager to stay in the Park Hyatt so we went to check prices. At 3am. After talking to the receptionist we looked around, the hotel is beautiful and at 3am it was deserted, we wandered the halls, snuck into the deserted restaurants and bars. It felt like we were living in a different city to everyone else.