FEAR AND TREMBLING
aka STUPEUR ET TREMBLEMENTS
Year: 2003
USA: Cinema Guild
UK: Cinefrance
Cast: Sylvie Testud, Kaori Tsuji, Taro Suwa, Bison Katayama, Yasunari Kondo, Sokyu Fujita, Gen Shimaoka, Heileigh Gomes, Eri Sakai
Director: Alain Corneau
Countries: France / Japan
Languages: French / Japanese (English subtitles)
USA & UK: 107 mins
UK Certificate: 12A contains moderate sex references and violence
USA Release Date: 19 November 2004 (Limited Release)
UK Release Date: 27 August 2004
(in French)
Synopsis
A blackly humorous adaptation of Amelie Nothomb's best-selling novel, and featuring extraordinary performances from Sylvie Testud and Kaori Tsuji, Alain Corneau's sophisticated comedy tells the story of Amelie, a dreamy and romantic young French woman who returns to Japan - country of her birth - only to find herself overwhelmed by the mysterious and absurd machinations of the Japanese business world.
Confounded by layer upon impenetrable layer of protocol, bewildered and frustrated by a closed and contemptuous system which ensures her steady and humiliating decline from translator to toilet attendant, caught up in a dangerous, seemingly unwinnable battle of wills with her beautiful and inscrutable superior Miss Mori, Amelie is tested to the limits of sanity before stumbling upon her own extraordinary means of liberation.