We might never know what exactly Bob whispered to Charlotte at the end of Sofia Coppola’s greatest offering “Lost In Translation,” but it is at least certain that it wasn’t the director’s initial intention to leave the sound out.

And even after 17-year-long speculation surrounding the end of the movie, Sofia still doesn’t want to reveal the content of the intimate whisper, saying it’s open to interpretation.

“I was thinking about the Italians, because they used to film and add the sound later,” Sofia explained on the fourth episode of BBC Arts’ Life Cinematic, a series of in-depth explorations of film for BBC4. “I didn’t intend for it to be silent and then in the editing, we were like, ‘Oh it’s better if it’s just between them and the audience puts their own interpretation,’ it’s so much stronger that way. I was kind of stuck, like how are we going to convey the epicness of that moment? But I never meant it to be that way, so some things work out in a way that you don’t expect.”