第 27 屆 香 港 國 際 電 影 節 電 影
Film of the 27th Hong Kong International Film Festival

Fear and Trembling is one of the films I like most in this year's HKIFF. The Chinese title means "New Amilie's Adventure in Japan". We all know about the "Amelie" of "Amelie from Montmartre". It looks like the owner of the film wants to use the name as a promotion tool. Although the protagonist is really an "Amelie", Fear and Trembling deserves more than treated that way.

The film is made by a Frenchman, Alain Corneau, but the whole film is basically in Japanese. The story is about a Belgian girl born in Japan. She left Japan at the age of five with her parents. After growing up, she decided to go back to Japan to experience the Japanese way of life which she never had the chance. She got a junior job, instead of doing translation which she hoped for, in a traditional Japanese company. At first, she had to do some meaningless job like photocopying for no reason. She thought there must be a reason why she had to do what she was assigned to do. Later, she was assigned to do some accounting for her boss Fubuki. Finally, she found that there is no way for her to become a real Japanese, and she left the country for good.

The story shows how Westerners see the Japanese culture, and what it is like try to be a real Japanese. Amelie wanted to be somebody she was not, and that was meant to be a failure before she tried that. The film also shows things that the Japanese businesses do which we may never be able to understand, such as asking the subordinates to photocopy things with any instructions, and complaining that the copies are off-center!