Stupore e tremori

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".

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.

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.

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.