Fear and Trembling

Reminiscent of the Western/Eastern culture clash in Lost in Translation, this incisive, funny, but also strangely melancholic film--adapted by Alain Corneau from a novel by Amelie Nothomb--tells the tale of a mousy Belgian girl who suffers through an almost unimaginably horrendous year as a low-level employee in the high-rise offices of a Tokyo-based mega-corporation. From the first, Amelie (Sylvie Testud, in a flawlessly restrained performance) is treated with utter condescension, and as time passes she's relegated to ever more demeaning duties: the twist being that her repeated humiliations serve a strangely instructive purpose, teaching Amelie to embrace the attitude of complete submission to hierarchical authority that's characteristic in the Japanese workplace though totally antithetical to Western notions of initiative and independent thinking. The impeccably-made Fear and Trembling may seem pretty slight on the surface--not much more than an elongated sketch--but on a deeper level the film underscores the essential impenetrability of cultures to outsiders, while painting a fascinating psychological portrait of a woman bewildered by the society she idolizes, who must (from a European perspective) debase herself in order to gain even grudging acceptance within it. Highly recommended. [Note: DVD extras include an 11-minute “making-of” featurette, an essay by film critic Mark Peranson of Cinemascope magazine, and trailers. Bottom line: a small extras package for a fine film.] (F. Swietek)