Fear and Trembling

Film · Tokyo Stories: Japan in the Global Imagination

Saturday, November 23, 7 PM

Returning to her birth country of Japan from Belgium for an entry level interpreting job at the Yumimoto Corporation in Tokyo, wide-eyed Amélie (Sylvie Testud, who memorized her Japanese lines phonetically and won the Best Actress César for her efforts) is ready to accept anything in order to return to her roots and become “truly Japanese.” Her eagerness, however, is only met with a series of increasingly humiliating scoldings, punishments and demotions from every rung in the Yumimoto hierarchical ladder. Adapted from Amélie Nothomb’s semi-autobiographical novel by French director Alain Corneau, Fear and Trembling is a sardonic depiction of Japanese corporate culture and gender relations told from a Western perspective that comically imagines modern Japan as a closed country still operating under a severe bushido code.

2003, France/Japan, 106 min., 35mm, in French and Japanese with English subtitles. Directed by Alain Corneau. With Sylvie Testud, Kaori Tsuji, Taro Suwa, Bison Katayama.

Part of Tokyo Stories: Japan in the Global Imagination

Tickets: $14/$11 seniors, students & persons with disabilities/$10 members

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