Fear And Trembling

Not the Kierkegaard adaptation you've been waiting for, but a sleek and sublimely deadpan comedy of Japanese corporate manners based on the autobiographical novel by Belgian expatriate Amelie Nothomb. Born in Japan to Belgian parents, Amelie (Sylvie Testud) returned to Belgium as a 5-year-old but grew up feeling she'd left her heart in the Kansai Province. She returns to Japan after college, thrilled at the prospect of becoming a "real Japanese" in her adopted country; she even lands a job in the titanic Yumimoto Corporation, where's she's the last link in a long chain of command as rigidly stratified as an Edo-era shogunate. Originally hired as an interpreter, Ameli...