Fear And Trembling follows downtrodden Belgian translator Am茅lie (Sylvie Testud) as she takes a job in a Tokyo firm's head office. Speaking fluent Japanese and enamoured with life in the East, she quickly finds herself on the receiving end of cruel office politics, sadistic bosses, and the complex niceties of Japan's intricate system of manners. As her dream job turns into a living nightmare, she's trapped in a world that's part The Office, part Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence.
With its voiceover-heavy drama and careful observation of character and incident, it's no surprise to discover that this is adapted from an autobiographical novel by Am茅lie Nothomb. Fear And Trembling offers a fascinating take on the intricate office politics and hierarchical system of honour and duty that pervades the Japanese corporate landscape. Offending her co-workers on a variety of seemingly petty but ultimately insurmountable problems, Am茅lie finds herself demoted from translator to photocopier to number cruncher to, eventually, toilet attendant in the space of a few months.
"CAPTURES THE SHEER MISERY OF THE OFFICE"
The parallels it draws between the severity of Am茅lie's Japanese bosses and their Second World War II counterparts seems too sweepingly facile to be taken completely seriously, but as a snapshot of the mind-numbing reality of working 9-5, Fear And Trembling captures the sheer misery of the office as a place of "torture, humiliation and contempt".
Playing up the sadomasochistic relationship between Am茅lie and her immediate superior Fubuki (Kaori Tsuji), it never quite scales the kinky comic heights of Secretary, but it captures the sublimated desire of the workplace perfectly. In this story, bowing and scraping - not to mention fear and trembling (the title refers to the way one was supposed to address the emperor in ancient Japan) - sometimes brings as much pleasure as pain.
In Japanese and French with English subtitles.
Fear And Trembling (Stupeur Et Tremblements) (2004)
