Fear and Trembling (2003) User Reviews

I Guess You Had To Be There

[kjacobs51 · 8/10 · 19 September 2005]

Having been a foreigner working in a huge Tokyo office, much the same as the character Amelie, when I saw this film at the San Francisco Film Festival, I was hooked from the first scene onward. Having been denied attending the office Christmas Party because I was "part- time".... No, I am here 9-5, Monday to Friday! "But you are a foreigner, so you are considered part-time". 250 people went to the party. No foreigners....

Then, when the boss came 'round to ask which Saturdays I would like to come in and work, I asked "Do all full-time employees have to come in on some Saturdays?"

"Oh yes, we do."

"Well then, since I am only 'part-time', I will not be able to come to work any Saturdays. Sorry...."

This was a rare moment of zen revenge, which is what you will hope for when Amelie is subjected to life in HER Tokyo office. No, this is not Lost In Translation, which apparently did not enthrall the foreigners who were living in Tokyo, by the way. More like L.I.T. on steroids.

This is a fable, based on reality. Tokyo can be intense. I never flew above the city, but I got twisted enough to wish it.

By the way, the director told our audience that most of the film was done in an office in Paris, and that the lead actress did not know a word of Japanese before the film. This shocked me, as I was quite impressed with her pronunciation and speed. I thought she spoke Japanese, and felt humbled by her skill...

To all the GAIJIN out there - see this film! For others, I would suggest Japanophiles and quirky movie lovers should go, and the Hollywood action types should pass.

A shock of civilizations behind closed doors

[a-cinema-history · 8/10 · 23 April 2003]

This film is an excellent, almost literal, transposition of the eponymous book by Amélie Nothomb, that I had read with great pleasure. It is quite rare that a film transposing a book is as enjoyable as the original work, but I found it was the case here. The film adds the musicality of the Japanese language, and the breathtaking aerial views of Tokyo. Obviously this film does not pretend to be an objective film about Japan, it is a distorted view by a rather unbalanced character, perfectly played by a hallucinated Sylvie Testut, desperately struggling to win her challenge to remain one year in that company, at any cost. It is therefore entirely appropriate that the film focuses only on her life within the company, as a symbol of her obsession. For those who want to know more about Japanese life, there are hundreds of movies by great Japanese directors from Imamura to Takeshi Kitano. If you liked this movie, and want to understand a bit more the mentality of the main character, I recommend to read A. Nothomb's first book about her childhood in Japan "La métaphysique des tubes".

Doing Business the Japanese Way

[pdx3525 · 8/10 · 9 January 2005]

Remember in the late 1980s when Japan's economy was the envy of the world and best-selling books said a company's survival depended on doing business the Japanese way? Belgian writer Amelie Nothomb was in Tokyo in 1989 and later wrote her own book – an autobiographical novel -- that inspired this dark, often funny, story about life inside a giant Asian corporation. It is well worth watching.

Amelie is hired as a translator for the enormous Yamimoto Corporation and put in the accounting department. She is bright, talented and fluent in Japanese and all goes well at first. Unfortunately, Amelie doesn't fully understand the office culture and protocols. That leads to a series of missteps that result in her receiving increasingly degrading assignments.

Amelie's descent down the corporate ladder provides a fascinating glimpse into Japanese corporate life. It is a place that rewards loyalty, not initiative, where workers are promoted based on time served, not because of accomplishment, and bosses use public humiliation to keep employees in line. Watching the managers at Yamimoto in action you begin to understand why the Japanese economy has been in the dumps for the last 15 years.

'Gaijin: Approach the Emperor with fear and trembling!'

[janos451 · 30 July 2005]

The 2003 "Fear and Trembling" is just now being released in the US, with the Northern California premiere taking place in San Francisco's Balboa Theater, Aug. 4-10, 2005.

A mind-boggling view into the heart of Japan, "Fear and Trembling" includes some of the incongruous hilarity of Sofia Coppola's "Lost in Translation" and the monstrous (if ceremonially correct) barbarity of Nagisa Oshima's "Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence," but it's also tremendously new and different. It will make you laugh, cringe, learn, and refuse to accept what appears obvious to those on the screen.

As those two other Western perspectives on Japan, Alain Corneau's story is about the comedy and trauma of East-West relations, in this case through the epic (and yet deeply personal) struggle of a young Belgian woman "to fit in" with a Tokyo corporation.

Amélie Northomb is the author of the autobiographical novel on which the film is based, Sylvie Testud is the brilliant actress who plays the role. Amélie was born in Tokyo, daughter of Brussels' ambassador to Japan (although the film doesn't say this), lived there until age 5 when her family returned to Belgium. She considered Japan her real home, maintaining a deeply-felt, romantic attachment to the language and culture of the country.

In her mid-20s, Amélie gets a job as a translator with a giant corporation in Tokyo, and the film tells the story of her often incredible life of abuse, humiliation, and (to an outsider) near-insane routines that's the lot of Japan's salarymen... especially those who are women. Amélie goes from doing brilliant multilingual research - in violation, as it turns out, of company procedures, defying a supervisor's hatred of "odious Western pragmatism" - to resetting calendars... to serving coffee... to being made to copy the same document over and over again... to months of cleaning restrooms.

Impossible? Well, yes, but it is both "a true story" in fact, and Corneau - the great director of "Tous les matins du monde" and "Nocturne indien" - somehow gets the audience a few tentative steps closer to the "Japanese mind." It is, of course, only a partial success, but in the end, there is a fragile, right-brain appreciation of what is "most Japanese" in the film: Amélie's persistence through it all, "to save face."

At the same time, much of the conflict remains incomprehensible to an outsider, such as a supervisor's order to Amélie (hired because of language ability) "to forget Japanese" when there are visitors to the office. His explanation: "How could our business partners have any feeling of trust in the presence of white girl who understood their language? From now on you will no longer speak Japanese."

In the large, uniformly excellent Japanese cast, the name to learn is that of Kaori Tsuji, an amazing physical presence: a 6-foot-tall Japanese woman with a face that's both icily "perfect" and achingly vulnerable. In her film debut, Tsuji successfully copes with a major role that requires projecting many deep, often conflicting emotions - without changing her uniform, constant "correct expression."

Personally, "Fear and Trembling" came as a surprise, almost a shock. I thought, mistakenly, that after living in Hawaii for a decade, and having besides innumerable points of contact with Japanese culture and people, I wouldn't feel about an apparently truthful picture of the country as if I observed some bizarre and incomprehensible aliens... but I did.

When West meets East, some of your ideas often go west!

[RJBurke1942 · 7/10 · 20 February 2007]

Films about working in the office – any office – have been done before: Nine to Five (1980) comes to mind readily and there are many others too numerous to mention.

But, whereas this film has its comedic moments, it's not the same kind of comedy as the above, and not just because it was made in Japan, although that helped.

This really is a story about the difficulties in communication and understanding that exist between cultures and, arguably, those differences between Japanese culture and Western are, or can be, daunting.

Happily, the director presents the narrative from the Amelie's (Sylvie Testud) point of view almost exclusively. In doing so, he exposes and satirizes some of the ridiculous situations that do exist in the Japanese workplace, which, in another culture, would also be equally stupid, if not criminal.

Everybody's come up against tunnel vision in a supervisor. And the same goes for professional jealousy between co-workers. The difference with this film is, of course, the fact that Japanese modes of interaction, manager-worker relationships and, most importantly, individual initiative are regarded very differently when compared to similar conditions in an office in New York, London, Sydney or any other major Western city. To take just one example, a Western vice-president these days would be charged with assault if he'd acted in the same way as Omochi (Bison Katayama) did towards Amelie when the toilet paper tray in the men's toilet was empty. The fact that I could still laugh at that scene testifies to the ability of the director to highlight the absurdity of it all.

As you might expect, there's a lot of dialog, almost as much voice-over by Amelie as she thinks and fantasizes and very little in the way of action – well, action-fan type action, know what I mean? So, this movie will not appeal to everybody. I really liked it though as I have a soft spot for Japanese culture anyway, having been steeped in martial arts for nearly thirty years.

For me, this was a subtly satisfying slice of life of a Westerner – and female to boot -- in Japan. And quite hilarious at times.

Would love to know what Japanese think about this

[pauljcurley · 7/10 · 22 February 2009]

I watched Fear and Trembling mainly because I like Sylvie Testud, and also because I am studying French and wanted to watch a French-language film. It turns out most of the movie is in Japanese -- other than the main character's internal monologue (which is in French, of course).

The plot involves a Belgian woman (Amelie) who loves Japan (having spent her early childhood there) and who obtains employment at a huge corporation in Tokyo. Through various cultural misunderstandings, she continually gets demoted until her job mainly involves cleaning toilets.

The film depicts late 80's / early 90's Japanese corporate culture as unbelievably hierarchical, brutal, inefficient and de-humanizing. I suspect this was exaggerated, for comic and dramatic effect. And, for the sake of the Japanese people, I hope so.

My only two complaints about Fear and Trembling are (i) the over-use of the voice-over narration to tell the story, and (ii) the fact that we do not get any hint of Amalie's life (or anyone else's life) outside the office.

With respect to the latter point, another commenter noted "In the novel Amelie Nothomb writes : this could be leading to think I had no life outside the office, which is wrong. but for a schizophrenic reason, when I was at job in the 44th floor toilets of the yumimoto company I couldn't think of myself as the same person respected and loved by friends outside."

Overall, it was entertaining, thought-provoking, and by the end, strangely moving. Both my wife and I got a bit misty-eyed at the end - I was a bit surprised that the movie drew such sudden emotion out of me. Definitely worth seeing.

Reality surpasses fiction

[zazoomovie · 7/10 · 18 March 2003]

A friend of mine was wondering aloud whether the story could actually have happened in Japan. Well, I have no answer for that. All I can say is that to me, every detail was truthful to my not-so-in-depth knowledge of the Japanese culture. Only the gathering of them all in a single story line might yield such a surprising and delightful scenario worth being made into a movie.

All the Japanese characters were speaking to me in a moving way, for they were crafted according to real, human beings from everyday life. The casting was excellent and listening to the musicality of a once learned with enthusiasm and now forgotten foreign language was a treat. Casting was excellent and the Japanese actors all embodied perfectly their characters.

I missed seeing more Japanese female characters, especially those "office ladies" that would contrast with the leading Japanese lady (Fubuki-san) though, and help understand where she came from. I also missed seeing the French leading lady (Amelie-san) immersed in the Japanese very codified everyday life out of work : the kind of place where she lived, the kind of food she ate, the kind of places where she used to hang around when not spending her nights at the office, how she related with her co-workers, neighbors, friends during her spare time...

Have a wonderful time!

Oh, how I can relate! -might be spoilers-

[hystericblue42 · 10/10 · 4 October 2005]

If you have ever worked for a Japanese company, or plan to work for one, even if you insist that you love Japan like I do, you must see the movie, "Fear and Trembling" ("Stupeur et Tremblements" in French) before you embark on such a venture. Being a movie, it does exaggerate some points, such as the bombastic personality of Vice President Omochi, and the utter cold-hearted cruelty of Fubuki. But besides that, everything is pretty accurate. The Japanese really do expect 100% accuracy in your work. Nothing less is acceptable. What may seem like a helpful, beneficial action, could be seen as an attempt at sabotage. No detail is too small-- when Mr. Saito makes Amelie copy his golf manual over and over because the text was off-center (so he said), I recalled M-san taking me to task for missing a tiny detail here or there after typing up ending credits. Or if I put the documents in reverse order on the top of the sorted contracts, that was wrong because it could "cause big problem". Even the issue of being able to report to no one but her direct superior...this too, is true. Even though only 10 people were working at the company where I worked, and even though the president was right down the hall, everything had to come through my direct superiors. And I was nobody's superior. And I can't forget the bathrooms. I, like Amelie, was made to supply the bathrooms every day with extra toilet paper, paper towels, soap, and trash bags. I can appreciate how Amelie felt, staring at Fubuki's beauty. One of my superiors was a classic Japanese beauty as well, only more petite than Fubuki. Such dainty, perfectly formed features. I was lucky that she didn't have a personality like Fubuki. I especially enjoyed Amelie's moments of "falling out the window". Very artfully done, even if you could tell she was in front of a screen. The actress was so wistful...she just wanted to escape... If I had seen this movie before working where I did, I wonder if I might have acted differently.

simple answer

[sumii · 7/10 · 18 March 2005]

Hi all, I've watched this movie and enjoyed it as a Japanese born in Tokyo and lived there for ~30 years (though my wife, also Japanese, was p***ed off.;-) Just a short comment on questions like "can this be real?" - my answer is clear and obvious "no". It could possibly happen to _Japanese_ female employees in a few nasty companies 30 years ago, but is simply impossible to "Westerners" as they are specially respected. Whether this is good or bad is another question.

By the way, some of the text appearing at the official web site (http://www.cinemaguild.com/fearandtrembling/) as background decoration actually looks like Korean or something. It is definitely not Japanese. I'm not talking about the Katakana characters outside the flash window, but the white background inside the flash window itself, though it is very hard to see on some monitors.

as good as the novel

[Varboro · 9/10 · 9 May 2004]

When I read a novel i like to imagine the character's face, and I liked to see Sylvie Testud as Amelie. The movie is very close to the novel, and in my opinion a good adaptation. All the action takes place in the office of the powerful Yumimoto company, where Amelie gets a job and fails because, even if she is born in japan she is an occidental. Hired as an interpret she soon realize she has no work, except to serve coffee but she is an occidental, and fatality, she fails. The occidental brain is inferior to japanese one. In the end she becomes janitor in the 44th floor toilets.

The movie refers to "merry christmas Mr Lawrence"(named 'Furyo'), another good movie about the opposition between occident and orient. Here we have a different point of view. The poor Amelie tries to conform to japanese way of life, do her best but fails, and don't really understand why all goes wrong ( nor do the spectator, and this is the comic of the movie).

One can find the strict limitation to the office frustrating, as we don't know anything about Amelie's life outside. Well, In the novel Amelie Nothomb writes : this could be leading to think I had no life outside the office, which is wrong. but for a schizophrenic reason, when I was at job in the 44th floor toilets of the yumimoto company I couldn't think of myself as the same person respected and loved by friends outside.

For a similar reason, The other characters remain schematic. Mr Omoshi and Mr Saito are seen through Amelie's eyes as monsters, and we know she is lost and nobody tries to help her or to explain anything.

Even Fubuki is not very developed as a character. Amelie don't know anything about her real life, except she is 29, she works in the company for 7 years and she is too old to marry. But Amelie is a dreamer and she sees Fubuki as the perfect japanese girl, and her imagination leads her from the interpret job to the toilet cleaning...

Sorry, sometimes things are hard to explain, as english is not my natural language, but I think this movie was worth the try. Maybe it is not a masterpiece, but it lies among my favorites. My advice is to see the movie first, then read the novel ( and the other ones from Amelie Nothomb as well)

Racism and sadism

[stensson · 7/10 · 30 May 2004]

Western people are fully aware of their stupidity, their patronizing and their splendid bad behaviour on other continents. It's a cliché, a common conscience. For some reason this is supposed not to exist in other countries. That's why "Stupeur et Tremblements" is chocking. Have the Japanese been like this all time since World War II? At office anyway?

The Belgian and the Japanese girl, where the later is the boss, are getting involved in some kind of s/m relationship, although everything is part of Japanese office culture in its most brutal form. The references to "Goodbye Mr. Lawrence" are obvious. It's not totally clear who wins, Eastern arrogance or Western submission.

You get a lot to think about, after the chock-waves of seeing one of your of kind, a Westerner, being treated like that, has calmed. Is this a love story or just a way of turning things in a totally opposite way? You are not sure.

A kind of a female Svejk

[Ana_Banana · 8/10 · 11 July 2005]

Luckily I read the book after I have seen the movie. Actually they transposed the book almost literally, with plenty of voice-over reading Amelie's comments from the novel. But anyway, it was enjoyable due to its real humor and anti-system irony. This movie has an atmosphere similar in a way to a kind of subtle, feminine "Office Space". Well, so ends another of our myths (Japanese efficiency)... I'm kidding! (Am I?) Don't you think Amelie is some kind of a modern days, female Svejk? She likes to appear dumb just in order to explore the stupidities of the system and to reveal them by obeying to anything. The implicit irony is the same in both characters. And Sylvie Testud was a pleasant surprise for me in that role, looking fragile but betrayed by her intelligent eyes. So, if you want even better fun, read the book!

completely lost in translation

[dromasca · 7/10 · 17 September 2008]

Made in the same year as Sofia Coppola's film 'Lost in Translation' 'Stupeurs et tremblements' deals with the same cultural gap that faces Westerners who get in contact with the Japanese society. The difference in the approach is that while Coppola's heroes are in Japan on obviously temporary trips, the Amélie in this autobiographical movie is really the successful Belgian writer Amélie Nothomb telling the story of her tentative to live as a Westerner in the Japan of her birth, and to integrate in the life of a great Japanese corporation. She loves and admires Japan, and thinks that she understands it and aims to integrate into it.

One has to hope that life in a Japanese workplace is not or is no longer the one described in this film whose action takes place in the 1990. Brutality, chauvinism and xenophobia seem to dominate the human relations, while the work relations seem to be reigned in by absolute respect for hierarchy which prevails on any tentative to work more efficiently, or to have some fun at the workplace or just to develop a human relation with her colleagues. The total admiration of Amélie for the place, and for her female manager is answered with brutality and humiliations, and only a total reprimand of any personal ambitions and transition into submission helps her survive the one year of her Japanese career. The end seems to suggest that the system is stronger than anything - with the general manager of the company having understood all that is going on but refusing to change anything, and with her supervisor sending her remotely a sign of humanity, but only long after the working relations have ended.

I was not crazy about the film making of Alain Corneau, he seems to be too much in love with the magic of the texts of Amélie Nothomb, one of the most inventive and original novelists writing in French nowadays, and has thus used to many off-screen comments taken from the text of the novel, without finding any original equivalent in cinema language. On the other hand Sylvie Testud is superb, when one says Amelie I hear Audrey Tautou, and well, Sylvie is up to challenging Audrey Tautou as one of the best and most charming French actresses today.

I just keep imagining what Sofia Coppola would have made of this story.

Interesting but maddening

[rch427 · 5/10 · 26 March 2010]

As a long-time Japanophile and frequent visitor to Japan, I really wanted to enjoy "Fear and Trembling". Alas, the film ruined much of that potential for me. But first the pros: the social and business dynamics depicted are spot-on. The acting -- particularly by Tsuji Kaori -- is excellent. The office set where 99% of the film takes place, is utterly believable (for actually being filmed in Paris). The story has great potential, especially for being semi-autobiographical.

So, what are the cons? First, the pacing. For a film whose cover blurb compares it to "Lost in Translation", it has few of that films transcendent passages. The latter's pacing is poetic. The former's is glacial. They could've cut at least 15 minutes of unnecessarily long scenes from this and ended up with a better film for it. Second, the protagonist. Passive, slovenly, usually dim-witted, I found it impossible to sympathize with her plight, or even to look at her.

And third -- and most inexplicable -- the fact that she was utterly, bloody-mindedly ignorant of Japanese customs. The notion that she could speak idiomatic Japanese but not have learned even the basics of Japanese business etiquette is simply absurd. She knew enough to always address people by their proper titles, but not enough to *bow* when her bosses gave her an order?! She knew that blowing one's nose in front of another person was rude, but didn't know that she should never argue with her superiors?! She knew that she should accept blame for her own failures, but didn't know that staring at people is seen as highly aggressive?! Simply unbelievable.

I suppose that many people watching "Fear and Trembling" who are ignorant of Japanese etiquette and protocol might not have as much trouble with these, but for those who *do* understand the basics of social interaction and hierarchy in Japan, her behavior goes from being sympathetic to unbearable. I ended up rooting for those who were beating her down, simply because she was such an "ugly American" (for being Belgian) an utter dolt. Of course, your mileage may vary.

Moving

[rmvandijk · 2 August 2004]

This film may accurately depict Japanese office life or it may be full of stereotypes, I don't know. But whichever it is, it makes a wonderful story brought to life by a good cast.

Belgian Amelie seems to know Japan and it's culture, but can't help get into trouble by acting "Western" while working in a Japanese office. As the film goes on you see Amelie make mistakes and you get the urge to warn her not to get into trouble. Her sense of absurdity and courageous submittance make her a likable character. The constricted setting in which people don't express their feelings make the internal monologues and narration very functional.

The story is strong, the filming sober and functional, the cast well-picked. A nice experience for anyone who wants to watch a production from outside LA.

Whimsical...

[Nooshin_Navidi · 7/10 · 11 September 2010]

While I understand why some reviewers had a hard time with this film, the positive aspects of it far outweighed the negative for me.

The cartoonish feel of the film served it well, especially given Sylvie Testud's whimsical face & sensibilities (most delightfully on display in the scene with her ripping off the calendar page with flourish to the applause of the gathered employees!) Testud plays the part with a childlike sincerity which is on the whole pleasing and watchable, even in light of all the hard-to-watch moments and implausible events.

One simply cannot watch this in a strictly American mindset or it would turn into a farce, and not a very good one. The fact that the film is based on an autobiographical novel lent it more meaning & poignancy than if it were strictly fictional.

~NN

Enjoyable Comedy about Culture Clash

[kenjha · 7/10 · 9 August 2011]

Having been born in Japan, a young Belgian woman spends a year working for a large corporation in Tokyo. This is an enjoyable comedy about culture clash. Although she is obviously smart and driven, Amelie is given menial jobs in the Japanese company because she must earn her way up the corporate ladder. While there appear to be truths in the portrayal of the Japanese hierarchical structure, the filmmakers stress their points here by turning the Japanese characters into caricatures. In contrast to her one-dimensional Japanese co-workers, Testud creates a likable and sympathetic character who is determined to succeed despite the mistreatment by her superiors.

Great movie about a horrific office situation

[fepp · 8/10 · 11 June 2004]

This movie is interseting to compare to "lost in translation" that preceded it in Swedish cinemas. Where Lost in Translation details the bewilderment of a casual visitor to Japan, this details the utter difference between Japanese work culture and western.

The focus in the office really works, the movie would have been exhilarating had there been any everyday scenes from outside the office.

The movie manages to engage the viewer, and you really feel sorry for Amelie when she fails to fit in. At times, she seems almost suicidably stupid when it comes to picking up obvious clues about proper behavior from people who want to help her. You would expect that she could behave more intelligently and less emotionally, but she doesn't. A good sign that the movie really does engage -- you care about the character.

Sometimes the movie is hilarious, especially the scolding that Amelie receives from the boss Ochiri.

Never having been to Japan, this movie seems believeable, and I like its focus on the workplace. I actually think you could use it in education to show people how a dysfunctional organization looks (at least from a modern western viewpoint putting a great emphasis on personal initiative and independence). Compared to my real experience from Korea, it also seems reasonable, even though Koreans are more flexible and less condescending towards westerners. I guess Amelie's being a woman did not help either.

OVerall, a movie well worth watching.

Funny, charming, witty and a little weird.

[dpetrovic-1 · 9/10 · 8 March 2004]

I liked this film a lot. I haven't read the book though,so I cannot compare, but it is a very charming story about the working environment in Tokyo and a Belgian lady trying to fit in.

Having worked for Japanese for 4 years (in Canada), I can say that the Japanese characters are more like caricatures. Maybe things are different with Japanese people in Japan? I would like to read a comment from a Japanese person. I think that would give great insight into this film.

Anyway, I wouldn't like to give any spoilers, so my comment is: go see it! It is funny, charming, witty and a little weird.The actual plot is not as important as the atmosphere of the film. I gave it 9/10.

Pretty Frightening view of Japan

[zzapper-2 · 8/10 · 4 February 2006]

One minute I was working in the UK. Then a lucrative job advert, a 30 minute interview, and a few days later I found myself in a huge office in Belgium. So I find myself in a foreign country where I know nobody at all. At least however there already some British co-workers. I still remember my bewilderment in the evenings watching all these thousands of people driving, catching buses to destinations I'd never heard of, ALL knowing where they going me; only me totally confused. But that was obviously NOTHING like the cultural shock that Amelie experienced and kept on experiencing. We just loved this film, you just felt you were there. Please more comments on it by Japanese.

Absolutely nothing to do with reality

[KFL · 2/10 · 28 May 2011]

Hard to believe that this is taken seriously by anyone who knows anything about Japanese corporate culture.

Yes, talented women are frequently relegated to serving tea. Otherwise there's not much else to take away from this absurdly distorted view of a Japanese company, the "Yumimoto Corporation" (even the company name does not wash as a Japanese proper noun).

I am an American fluent in Japanese, and have worked in a half dozen different Japanese firms. None of them bear the slightest resemblance to this place, which struck me as a Japanified Dilbert strip, minus the humor.

And anyone "impressed with" Testud's parroted Japanese has scant familiarity with the language. Tom Conti did a much better job in Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, a short clip of which appears herein.

An idiotic, absurd hit job, the poorly planned and poorly executed consequence of taking seriously one woman's revenge fantasy. Avoid.

Imagination is highly required!!!

[Jolucy · 7 April 2004]

Fear and Trembling seldom changed scenes; everything happened in the office building, but it will be a big mistake to describe this film as dull, unimaginative, boring, monotonous or a dry one. On the contrary, it is quite an imaginative and interesting movie. Amelie, a Belgian girl who is obsessed with her Japanese childhood memories, decided to go back to work at the place where she's born. And here began with her miserable office work life. The only way out is her wild imagination!!!

This is quite a universal issue, absurd, preposterous, ridiculous, strange, unfair, unreasonable things do happen in offices whether it's in Asia, Europe or in America. Your supervisor gives you stupid work just to prove that you are inferior to her/him, never ever giving thought to the benefits of the whole company. Try to find a decent job to demonstrate your skills or to make people you work with recognize your abilities are just some silly and naive notions for newcomers. You can hardly achieve any self-achievements, self-fulfillments or whatsoever while you have supervisors and colleagues. The only survival kit is taking the whole thing as a joke and using wild imagination to play along with other coworkers, just like what Amelie did!!!

Fear and Trembling gives you a glimpse of what happen in the offices, how foolish obsession will lead you, how culture differences play a big role in a foreign environment, and of course how and what you can do to face them bravely.

This film is highly recommended to those who were, are and will work with others in the office!! You will see that imagination is highly required for those who want to survive in an office work life!!!

You will laugh but you will wince

[christopher-underwood · 9/10 · 9 September 2007]

Engrossing, devastating indictment upon corporate Japan and its mores. Sylvie Testud as the young Belgian returning to the country where she spent the first five years of her life and Kaori Tsuji as her stunning boss lady, are both magnificent in their so believable roles but this is not an easy film to watch. You will laugh but you will wince and feel for those down trodden by a system that equates longevity of a male worker's employment with success over those of a more innovative employee and certainly a woman or even more so a foreigner. What chance then a foreign woman worker? Director Corneau has apparently stuck fairly closely to the original autobiographical novel and this is a most affecting movie, even more so for those, like me, who have family in the country. Not 'enjoyable' in the normally accepted sense but a most rewarding experience.

anti-Office Space

[petr-17 · 8/10 · 7 September 2005]

The best way of describing this film is like the antithesis to Mike Judge's Office Space.

The story covers a year of a Belgian/Japanese girl working in Japan for a large Corporation. The insanity of this arrangement goes beyond mere cultural East and West differences, and borders on sado-masochism. And in fact is pointed out as a metaphor for sex (although there is none in the film.) The cultural differences and rules portrayed in the film completely engross the viewer. It is a rare film where the play out of the subject matter completely engulfs your attention. Though the film does focus on familiar (or rather identifiable) stereotypes there are enough twists in etiquette to even break those.

The acting is superb all around. Sylvie Testud's performance is exceptional.

Cinematography is OK. The special effects of flying over Tokyo are below standard, and the window overlooking the city looks extremely fake.

Audio suffers from some blatant re-dubbing (particularly on Sylvie Testud's Japanese dialog.) The Bach music is out of place and does not fit the film very well, particularly as it is a harpsichord piece.

Overall a definite film for anyone who worked in an office environment and thought they had it tough. Also a good second thought for anyone considering working in Japan.

A 24-Hour Day

[frankgaipa · 9/10 · 31 October 2005]

"I had, outside the company, an existence far from empty or insignificant. I decided not to speak of it here…eleven metro stations from there, was a place where (Japanese) liked me, respected me, and saw no rapport at all between a toilet brush and me" (my awkward translation from p. 159-160, Stupeur et tremblements, Editions Albin Michel S.A., 1999). The novel's barely 200 pages of largish print. Nearly all of the movie's events have already gone down by the time Nothomb pauses to excuse the world outside la compagnie Yumimoto. Two years have passed since I saw the film, and two weeks since I read the novel. I can't recall whether the admission made it into the film. If so, it may been too easy to miss in the general downward rush.

My overwhelming reaction to the film, and somewhat less so to the novel, was a confusion of annoyance with and embarrassment for Amélie. Again and again, not so unlike a horror movie heroine stupidly wandering into dark places alone, she does what even we totally out of it in the audience can see is going to be the wrong thing. Again and again, I asked myself: Why can't she bide her time awhile, watch and learn? Of course she couldn't. They wouldn't let her. But still, as least as Sylvie Testud plays her, she might have gotten on even Westerners' nerves. I can imagine working with or around her in such an office, but might not always like it. Yet add a life outside as indicated that quote with which I began, and it's possible to see not just a saner host society but a saner Amélie/Nothomb as well. Fubuki too, comes across a bit more complexly in the novel where she's a genuinely tragic figure, too old (at an insanely young age) to marry wisely, but this is at the expense of pages of exposition that would have stopped the film cold. When the vice-president has a screaming fit at Fubuki, Amélie sees unconscious sexual tension, an excuse for the fat man to get close to the imposing beauty. An unlikely but apt touch point film might be Neil Labute's 1997 In the Company of Men.

An American-born but much older coworker of mine used to tweak us by saying about Japanese visiting the Bay Area, "Hey, they reeeally impress me. They're so regimented! I wish I could be like that!" I don't think he meant it. More likely he was reminding us that those otherworldly visitors were not him. Stupeur et tremblements has the form of a horror flick, or even of Larry David-style embarrassment comedy. To get more out of it, try to imagine for each character, even the obese vice-president, a 24-hour day.