From Below, episode 18: HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN HERE? – ÇA FAIT LONGTEMPS QUE TU ES LÀ ?
For the new message for the neon sign, Christian Robert-Tissot has picked a line from Lost in Translation. Released in 2003, Sofia Coppola’s film reveals two solitudes that find each other amid the noise of the world.
In the loud vulgarity of a strip-club filled with overexcited Japanese businessmen and exhausted dancers, Bob remains silent and uncomfortable, seated alone on a bench. Charlotte’s arrival seems to bring him back to himself. When she sits down beside him and asks, “How long have you been here?”, his gaze expresses the joy of finding her again, without this being articulated in any spoken reply.
Their relationship is a suspended moment, built on the smallest of gestures: a glance in a taxi, a half-whispered conversation, shared insomnia, a laugh in an empty street at dawn. The two protagonists are not living a love story in the traditional sense, but rather a parenthesis of silent recognition, grounded in a shared melancholy.
Older, Bob is going through an existential fatigue, while the young Charlotte moves forward without anchoring or a clear direction, uncertain both of her relationship and her place in the world. Their sense of displacement is amplified by the city of Tokyo that surrounds them like an unreal, saturated set: neon lights, hotel rooms, elevators, high-rise bars, conversations they cannot understand. Deprived of certainties, routines, and social roles, their fragility opens up a space of truth.
Having inaugurated a series of more introspective roles for Bill Murray and launched Scarlett Johansson’s international career, Lost in Translation suggests the imperceptible shift of a fleeting encounter. The film thus celebrates suspension, incompleteness, and a restraint that becomes a form of elegance. With its minimal gestures and suspended dialogues, it succeeds in allowing us to inhabit this in-between state with quiet ease.
Discover the complete From Below series by Christian Robert-Tissot, launched in December 2020. The message on the illuminated sign is renewed every three months until the official opening of the Plaza Centre Cinéma.
Photo credit: © Roman Lusser