"I had, outside the company, an existence far from empty or insignificant. I decided not to speak of it here
eleven metro stations from there, was a place where (Japanese) liked me, respected me, and saw no rapport at all between a toilet brush and me" (my awkward translation from p. 159-160, Stupeur et tremblements, Editions Albin Michel S.A., 1999). The novel's barely 200 pages of largish print. Nearly all of the movie's events have already gone down by the time Nothomb pauses to excuse the world outside la compagnie Yumimoto. Two years have passed since I saw the film, and two weeks since I read the novel. I can't recall whether the admission made it into the film. If so, it may been too easy to miss in the general downward rush.
My overwhelming reaction to the film, and somewhat less so to the novel, was a confusion of annoyance with and embarrassment for Amélie. Again and again, not so unlike a horror movie heroine stupidly wandering into dark places alone, she does what even we totally out of it in the audience can see is going to be the wrong thing. Again and again, I asked myself: Why can't she bide her time awhile, watch and learn? Of course she couldn't. They wouldn't let her. But still, as least as Sylvie Testud plays her, she might have gotten on even Westerners' nerves. I can imagine working with or around her in such an office, but might not always like it. Yet add a life outside as indicated that quote with which I began, and it's possible to see not just a saner host society but a saner Amélie/Nothomb as well. Fubuki too, comes across a bit more complexly in the novel where she's a genuinely tragic figure, too old (at an insanely young age) to marry wisely, but this is at the expense of pages of exposition that would have stopped the film cold. When the vice-president has a screaming fit at Fubuki, Amélie sees unconscious sexual tension, an excuse for the fat man to get close to the imposing beauty. An unlikely but apt touch point film might be Neil Labute's 1997 In the Company of Men.
An American-born but much older coworker of mine used to tweak us by saying about Japanese visiting the Bay Area, "Hey, they reeeally impress me. They're so regimented! I wish I could be like that!" I don't think he meant it. More likely he was reminding us that those otherworldly visitors were not him. Stupeur et tremblements has the form of a horror flick, or even of Larry David-style embarrassment comedy. To get more out of it, try to imagine for each character, even the obese vice-president, a 24-hour day.
My overwhelming reaction to the film, and somewhat less so to the novel, was a confusion of annoyance with and embarrassment for Amélie. Again and again, not so unlike a horror movie heroine stupidly wandering into dark places alone, she does what even we totally out of it in the audience can see is going to be the wrong thing. Again and again, I asked myself: Why can't she bide her time awhile, watch and learn? Of course she couldn't. They wouldn't let her. But still, as least as Sylvie Testud plays her, she might have gotten on even Westerners' nerves. I can imagine working with or around her in such an office, but might not always like it. Yet add a life outside as indicated that quote with which I began, and it's possible to see not just a saner host society but a saner Amélie/Nothomb as well. Fubuki too, comes across a bit more complexly in the novel where she's a genuinely tragic figure, too old (at an insanely young age) to marry wisely, but this is at the expense of pages of exposition that would have stopped the film cold. When the vice-president has a screaming fit at Fubuki, Amélie sees unconscious sexual tension, an excuse for the fat man to get close to the imposing beauty. An unlikely but apt touch point film might be Neil Labute's 1997 In the Company of Men.
An American-born but much older coworker of mine used to tweak us by saying about Japanese visiting the Bay Area, "Hey, they reeeally impress me. They're so regimented! I wish I could be like that!" I don't think he meant it. More likely he was reminding us that those otherworldly visitors were not him. Stupeur et tremblements has the form of a horror flick, or even of Larry David-style embarrassment comedy. To get more out of it, try to imagine for each character, even the obese vice-president, a 24-hour day.