screamer-13

For a European Japanophile like myself, this film was a must-see. A culture-shock comedy about a young Belgian woman going to work as an interpreter for a large Japanese corporation - what more could one want? And for the first half hour, the film delivered exactly as I had hoped. The caricature of the ultra-disciplinarian Japanese working environment was acute and funny, as were the situations the protagonist found herself in. I was enjoying myself big time, eager for the plot to develop further. Which it continuously failed to do. About half way through, it became painfully clear to me that this was not a comedy at all - it was an autobiographical account of the author's real-life experiences - and real-life experiences do not a good movie make.

The film is actually based on the semi-autobiographical (and prize-winning) novel by famed Belgian writer Amelie Nothomb, who was in fact born in Japan. You would think that she too would be a Japanophile, having lived and worked there, which makes the tone of the film even more surprising. Having created a perfect opportunity to give Western audiences a glimpse of Japanese culture, Nothomb seems determined to sabotage it by showing the Japanese in a solely negative light. Once the viewer's delusions of lesbianism have evaporated, the story arc can best be described as a slow plummet, and shockingly (as another reviewer has pointed out) there is not one scene that takes place outside the office building. Maybe this was deliberate, maybe it was due to budgetary constraints, I don't know. But it is an unforgivable mistake for a film of this nature, and makes the story that much more monotonous. Which is pretty monotonous, given that it focuses somewhat selfishly on the one main character, who doesn't even do anything particularly interesting.

I'm probably going easy on this film because it was in Japanese and I understood some snippets. Maybe when I have seen some more Japanese films I will be able to come back and give an unbiased review ;)

Though this film may be pretty light on story, it raises some thought-provoking situations and might even make the viewer reflect on their own life for a brief moment just like the main character does in the final scenes. The material is deftly handled and there is a gradually increasing sense of unease throughout the film that something terrible is going to happen sooner or later in the cab. Well, I don't want to spoil it; something does happen, just not exactly what we might have been expecting. An interesting twist to the tale. I must say Paul Dillon was very good. I spent the whole film weighing up his character and trying to decide whether he was a bit slow, extremely reserved, or terminally depressed. In the end not everything is revealed about his character; it's kind of left up to the viewer's interpretation. Nice. He was certainly unlike anyone I've ever known. It's just a pity that some of the episodes in the cab were a bit flat and didn't gel too well with each other. Maybe with a slightly more experienced team behind the scenes, and the same general premise and character arc, this could have been a bigger hit.