Issue:
. . . at 6:45 pm on Wed., Sept. 28 for a screening of this year’s Cannes Un Certain Regard Jury Award-winner, Harmonium (Fuchi ni tatsu). The film is a thrillingly dark portrait of the collapse of a fractured family following the arrival of an old acquaintance (played by star Tadanobu Asano with chilling politesse), who moves in and begins working in their small factory. If this sounds thematically similar to Fukada’s 2010 Hospitalité, which marked his advent on the international scene, that’s because it is. However, where the first was an amiable, blackly comic romp, Harmonium is altogether more serious-minded: an enigmatic, entirely engrossing work that probes undercurrents of surprising philosophical depth, it also ends with an ambiguity that will incite discussion long after its final, devastating moments. Fukada and stars Mariko Tsutsui and Kanji Furutachi will be on hand for a Q&A session afterward, perhaps joined by Asano. (Japan, 2016; 119 minutes; Japanese with English subtitles.)
– Karen Severns
