sitenoise
Member: Rank 5
Harmonium (Fuchi ni tatsu) [2016] • Japan, France
Director: Kôji Fukada (of Au Revoir l'été Fame)
7.12/10
It's a little odd that this is the second film Kôji Fukada has made about a stranger who insinuates himself into a seemingly calm family. The stranger first starts working for the family in their home business, then he moves in to their home, and ties between the man and the family are revealed and exploited. Kanji Furutachi played the stranger in the first one, Hospitalité. He plays the family man in this one. I like this one better.
RE: comrade ebossert's view that "The characters are not defined early on in a simplistic manner", I beg to differ. Any time one of a character's introductory scenes consists of bad eating-acting you have the most simplistic of definitions. The character is an idiot, with a bad moon rising. Both the family man and the stranger are introduced this way. They both turn out bad. No surprise. The first act of this film is so full of bad indie nonsense I can't believe I withstood the overwhelming urge to punt. I hit the FF button several times in hope of a reprieve. Glad I did. After the lame setup material is out of the way, including Asano's snorefest of a background story speech that sets things in motion, and the film finds it rhythm, it's frightening. And frighteningly good. And only then does it become unpredictable. There's a character swap about halfway through and trying to figure out the relationship and motivations really put me on edge. The second half of the film is walking on razor blades.
Asano has pretty much jumped the shark, imo. He's played this character a hundred times. I don't think he does anything special here, but he's not deal-breakingly bad. Kanji Furutachi is a good creep. In the first act he's trying to act like a creep and fails. In the second half he becomes a creep and is awesome. But the wowsville star of this thing for me is Mariko Tsutsui as the wife. Her face is hard-coded for WTF sadness. She does the Japanese thing of remaining calm in the face of super-WTF-ness, wonderfully. There are several big moments, impact moments, in the film where if I were her my head would have exploded, and I had no idea how she would react. She's wonderful. The opposite of acting. She looks like she's processing the information given to her for the first time--not like she's acting the part of processing information. Bravo!
When you see what happens to the kid it's funny, sad, super weird and then some. It remains thoroughly understated which doubles the funny, sad, super weird and then some of it.
As with too many films I see, I have no idea what the ending says. It felt abstract and lame but didn't spoil things for me. I highly recommend the film to those who aren't bothered by bad eating-acting, or may not notice bad indie cliché scenes you can FF through because nothing happens and they go on too long. And to those who are forgiving of bad scriptwriting and acting during a film's setup phase.
Director: Kôji Fukada (of Au Revoir l'été Fame)
7.12/10
It's a little odd that this is the second film Kôji Fukada has made about a stranger who insinuates himself into a seemingly calm family. The stranger first starts working for the family in their home business, then he moves in to their home, and ties between the man and the family are revealed and exploited. Kanji Furutachi played the stranger in the first one, Hospitalité. He plays the family man in this one. I like this one better.
RE: comrade ebossert's view that "The characters are not defined early on in a simplistic manner", I beg to differ. Any time one of a character's introductory scenes consists of bad eating-acting you have the most simplistic of definitions. The character is an idiot, with a bad moon rising. Both the family man and the stranger are introduced this way. They both turn out bad. No surprise. The first act of this film is so full of bad indie nonsense I can't believe I withstood the overwhelming urge to punt. I hit the FF button several times in hope of a reprieve. Glad I did. After the lame setup material is out of the way, including Asano's snorefest of a background story speech that sets things in motion, and the film finds it rhythm, it's frightening. And frighteningly good. And only then does it become unpredictable. There's a character swap about halfway through and trying to figure out the relationship and motivations really put me on edge. The second half of the film is walking on razor blades.
Asano has pretty much jumped the shark, imo. He's played this character a hundred times. I don't think he does anything special here, but he's not deal-breakingly bad. Kanji Furutachi is a good creep. In the first act he's trying to act like a creep and fails. In the second half he becomes a creep and is awesome. But the wowsville star of this thing for me is Mariko Tsutsui as the wife. Her face is hard-coded for WTF sadness. She does the Japanese thing of remaining calm in the face of super-WTF-ness, wonderfully. There are several big moments, impact moments, in the film where if I were her my head would have exploded, and I had no idea how she would react. She's wonderful. The opposite of acting. She looks like she's processing the information given to her for the first time--not like she's acting the part of processing information. Bravo!
When you see what happens to the kid it's funny, sad, super weird and then some. It remains thoroughly understated which doubles the funny, sad, super weird and then some of it.
As with too many films I see, I have no idea what the ending says. It felt abstract and lame but didn't spoil things for me. I highly recommend the film to those who aren't bothered by bad eating-acting, or may not notice bad indie cliché scenes you can FF through because nothing happens and they go on too long. And to those who are forgiving of bad scriptwriting and acting during a film's setup phase.