Harmonium app movie#
Harmonium app full#

In particular, Furutachi and Tsutsui shine as grim soloists faking their way through a makeshift duet. But his storytelling instincts are solid, and his actors always bring humanity to their darkest impulses and saddest epiphanies. FukadaРІР‚в„ўs take on family is genuinely bleak - what he sees is loneliness together instead of real companionship, and all the problems that arise from manufactured togetherness. But it makes for a uniquely churning mix of detective story and recovery drama before it throws another wrenching reveal into the works.Р”Р„s elegantly icy as РІР‚СљHarmoniumРІР‚Сњ is, itРІР‚в„ўs surprisingly not the kind of miserableist beatdown that too often gets passed off as the cold, unvarnished truth in movies about broken families. After a climax made of desire, blood, anger and tears that would satisfyingly conclude most stories about the perils of temptation and the corrupt ideal behind many families, Fukada asks the question rarely asked of these scenarios: РІР‚СљWhat happens then?РІР‚Сњ The answer thatРІР‚в„ўs unveiled over the second hour, and which takes place eight years later, is not exactly happy, either. That this growing connection breeds complications is a given, but itРІР‚в„ўs also only the half of it in FukadaРІР‚в„ўs double dip of unrest. One also detects that Yasaka is beginning to question his guilt-ridden asceticism. As the pair let silences and self-consciousness fall away, you can see her refreshed sense of Christian charity mingling with a confusing arousal. Though Akie is initially unsure what to make of their worker/houseguest - heРІР‚в„ўs polite but awkwardly so - sheРІР‚в„ўs the one who tries to make Yasaka feel included: nurturing his kindness toward Hotaru (he helps tutor her in music), including him on a family trip and eventually drawing out the story behind his imprisonment.

Harmonium app full#

But itРІР‚в„ўs a decision made without consulting Akie, and, we learn, without letting her know the full nature of their old bond. Yasaka (a commanding Tadanobu Asano), even letting him stay at their house. YouРІР‚в„ўd be forgiven for thinking itРІР‚в„ўs an apparition - thatРІР‚в„ўs how quietly eerie the image is - yet he is real, and from ToshioРІР‚в„ўs past: an acquaintance just released from prison, looking for work. Toshio is more at home running his workshop in the garage, until he looks up one day to see a tall, thin figure, dressed in dark slacks and a buttoned-up white shirt, across the street, staring at him.

At the dinner table, stoic Toshio (Kanji Furutachi) reads the paper while his dutiful if sad-eyed Christian wife, Akie (Mariko Tsutsui), and their daughter say their prayers before eating. ItРІР‚в„ўs already not the warmest of households, but the chill at least seems ordinary. It takes the familiar trope of buried secrets, stunted remorse and unexplored passion and uses them like slow-acting poison on the supposedly ideal nuclear family.

Harmonium app movie#

YouРІР‚в„ўd be hard-pressed to find a movie with as much simmering tension as FukadaРІР‚в„ўs, which won the Un Certain Regard jury prize at last yearРІР‚в„ўs Cannes competition. It keeps time for schoolgirl Hotaru (Momone Shinokawa) as she practices at home on the titular keyboard for an upcoming concert, but in this powder keg of a home, itРІР‚в„ўs also a countdown to tragedy, or the mechanized heartbeat of a family that you come to realize was never built on anything genuine. Tick, tick, tick, goes the metronome in the first scene of KР“Т‘ji FukadaРІР‚в„ўs РІР‚СљHarmonium,РІР‚Сњ as appropriate a sound effect as has ever started a tightly wound domestic drama.