Fear and Trembling (2003)

I picked up the DVD because of the introduction seems funny. After half of the film, I was wondering why I was still watching it. By curiosity, I decided to finish the film. And I was almost angry at myself why I wasted another hour of my life. It is a very badly made, no-story film. The film set is so far away from the reality, does not looks like a real office. It is hard to fall in love with the main character, almost to the point that you just don't care about this girl, she does nothing to change her misery. And the scene in which she trips herself naked and dance in the office looks really stupid and useless. On top of it, she put the garbage cover herself and sleep on the floor for the night. What does the filmmaker want to say about the personality. Amelie is not lovely, smart, and daring. What is her charm?What is the point of the film? The reality of working in a Japanese company as a foreigner? Who put up with all the abuse and still decides to stay in such a working environment does not deserve any pity. It is nothing to do with the difference between western and eastern culture. No company wants to waste their money to hire someone to do nothing. Japan has very limited resource, people hate wasting. A boss would keep wasting his employee's time and papers, it is hard to believe. They might love to torture this little Belgian girl but they would not like to waste their papers. In general, it is hard to believe that the rating of this film in IMDb is 7.1.

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.

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.

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.