Lost in Translation opens with a fade-up from black to a medium close-up shot of Scarlet Johansson's rear, clad in transparent pastel pink underwear, as her character lies down on her side. The image, framing her figure from lower back to just below the knee, is held for a lengthy thirty-four seconds and largely abstracted from the narrative at the time; still at first, then moving slightly as the legs adjust position. Company credits fade in and out above the upper edge of the figure, followed by music and the appearance of the main title across the lower half of her body, before the image fades again to black and the film proper seems to begin. The opening sets the tone of the piece, particularly in its languorous and softly glowing qualities, but also grated for some viewers, the overt nature of its display of the female body seeming out of keeping with the more general tenor of the film, even if the character does remain scantily clad in a number of scenes that follow. The location of the image, detached and at the privileged opening moment, gives it what appears to be an emblematic quality; but emblematic of what, exactly?

The impression is marked as one that seems designed to be ‘seductive’, in a manner that mixes more and less subtle qualities (more so in the image texture and the leisurely way in which it is presented; less in the close-to-nude status of the lower regions of a body that seems all the more objectified in being removed from its head or its location at this stage in relation to an identifiable character).