Fear and Trembling Movie Review:


This film has a subtly brilliant premise that it allows to expand and develop through a witty and sharp screenplay, superb performances and a willingness to really explore cross-cultural issues. Amelie (Testud) was born in Japan, but moved "home" to Belgium at age 5 with her family. After university, she returns to the land of her birth and a job in a Tokyo financial firm. But starting at the bottom is a lot trickier in Eastern Asia than in Western Europe! And even with a friend in the company (Kondo), Amelie struggles to navigate the hierarchy from her beautiful but cold boss Mari (Tsuji) to Mari's demanding superior (Suwa) to his laughing-madman boss (Katayama) to the astute company president (Haneda).

Writer-director Corneau captures the culture clash without soft-pedalling it for the audience. This is tricky, inexplicable stuff--Amelie is on her own, swimming with what appear to be sharks and trying to rationalise her lifelong hopes and dreams with what's really happening to her. And Testud creates such a remarkable, wonderful character that we stick right with her when things get seriously rough. With her pixie-like face, freckles and sandy-red hair, Amelie couldn't look any less Japanese, even though she speaks the language like a native. Meanwhile, the sleek Tsuji, bulldog-like Suwa and rotund Katayama add fascinating textures and meanings in their scenes.

This visual contrast is extremely clever, and Corneau and his cast make the most of it. There's lots of screaming and bowing and scraping, as well as a fair amount of fear and trembling; and the result on screen is often hilarious, then surprisingly touching. The relationships between the characters are complicated--impossible to predict or to fully understand as they intriguingly mix east-west patterns of behaviour, engaging us through the authentic characters. It's a delightfully entertaining film that actually manages to get under the surface and examine meaningful issues. It's also slightly reminiscent of two other films: a French film about another cheeky woman named Amelie, and Sophia Coppola's more melancholy examination of the same cultural territory, Lost in Translation.

Rich Cline

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