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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.

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".

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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!

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

I was shocked at many of the reactions to this film, as a lot of folks really liked it, some felt it was a comedy and some felt that the Japanese business people in this film were racist or unfair towards the lead, Amelie. I just thought she was a horrible employee who blundered into the Japanese business world without doing her homework and wanted it to change to suit her. Frankly, from what I saw in the film, I would assume that she wouldn't have fit in at any company in Belgium, either. Because of this, I had a hard time caring about this lady and felt that a look at how different Japanese business culture is from the West was totally obscured.

When the film begins, newly graduated Amelie begins work at a Japanese company. Apparently, she'd been born in Japan and longed to return there and make a success of herself in the country. However, almost from the start, she makes mistake after mistake-- some of which she might have avoided if she asked her supervisor for clarification or if she'd bothered to learn ANYTHING about the culture. It's very odd that someone who was born in the country and lived there until age 5 would know practically nothing about the Japanese business world. Sadly, it also appeared as if she really didn't want to know as well.

When Amelie makes mistakes, her usual way of dealing with it is to argue with her bosses, make excuses and view herself as some sort of martyr. In fact, in a particularly tasteless part of the film, she compares her plight to those murdered by the Japanese during WWII. How do war crimes somehow seem to be the same as a boss yelling at her (usually after she did something that showed that she was either woefully ignorant of the company culture)?

Oddly, the film was designed as some sort of indictment of the Japanese. I was flabbergasted by this. My daughter (who studied in Japan) and wife (who worked in corporate America and spent time in Japan doing business) were also shocked by this and found Amelie to be thoroughly unprofessional and unlikable...and didn't understand so many of her complaints about the Japanese business people. And, the movie's attempts to get the audiences to dislike these Japanese people seemed contemptible and racist.

Despite the film begin technically well made, its message just seemed ugly and self- absorbed. The story is apparently autobiographical and the author clearly was in love with herself throughout the entire film. She also, in a very, very ugly finale, seemed gleeful that her old supervisor was 'old' and unmarried by the end of the film while SHE was a successful author who now was obtaining revenge on her old company with her book! How incredibly ugly--and I resent being a pawn in her strange revenge fantasy.

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!!!

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.

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.