Stupeur et tremblements (2003) Reviews

• I Guess You Had To Be There

  kjacobs512005-09-19

  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.

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

  janos4512005-07-30

  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.

• A shock of civilizations behind closed doors

  a-cinema-history2003-04-23

  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".

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

  hystericblue422005-10-04

  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.

• Doing Business the Japanese Way

  pdx35252005-01-09

  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.