HarmoniumConcealing your true feelings, be it out of politeness or fear, invariably leads to a build up of unresolved emotions that come out in inappropriate ways. Harmonium is the story of a small family in Japan, consisting of the mother, Akie (Mariko Tsutsui), the father, Toshio (Kanji Furutachi), and their daughter, Hotaru (Momone Shinokawa). They are visited by an old friend of Toshio's, Yasaka (Tadanobu Asano), who has just been released from prison after eleven years for murder. Toshio conceals this detail from Akie, and allows Yasaka to stay in their home and work for them. But as the details of Yasaka's crime trickle out little by little, the family's well-being begins to collapse.
|
|
The first thing audiences will notice is how Harmonium alternates back and forth between melodrama and suspense, like Hotaru's metronome, which she uses to learn how to play the eponymous harmonium. Before Yasaka, the problems in the household are those of an average family, like how Akie is sowing a dress for her daughter for a recital. When Yasaka shows up outside of Toshio's workshop, he doesn't look like trouble, but neutral to the point of suspicion. He is uniformly dressed in a white dress shirt with black slacks, and is so polite and formal that it makes others uncomfortable, although many are themselves too polite to say so. Toshio is well aware of Yasaka's crime, but keeps this from his wife; out of a sense of obligation to Yasaka, he hires him and allows him to stay in their home without even asking Akie. Toshio appears inconsiderate through much of Harmonium, which makes Akie suspicious and leads her to investigate Yasaka, which in turn leads to him opening up and earning her sympathy. Yasaka is kind and even teaches Hotaru the harmonium; but there is a pervading awkwardness about Yasaka that compels Akie. Akie isn't honest about her emotions, and represses them from Yasaka. Her pent up feelings nearly lead to an affair between them, but she stops short from consummating it. This emotional crisis triggers a response in Yasaka, which leads to a tragedy for the family. All of this suffering is like a domino effect stemming from the original repression of emotions and the compounded deception--and underscores how easily trust can be shattered by an outsider as well as within.
Even after eight long years have passed, there is the same repression of emotion and truth that caused the family so much hardship before, as though they are forever caught in a behavioral rut that only gets worse with time. The quieter moments in Harmonium feel overly formal to Western audiences, but are not uncommon for a subdued Japanese drama--it is as though the film were commenting on the perils of being overly polite, a trait sometimes associated with Japanese society. Characters often apologize when there is no need, or conceal the cause of their emotions, like when Akie begins to cry after Yasaka confides his revelation after being sent to prison to her. The implication is that if the characters were honest with themselves and their feelings, these tragedies wouldn't have happened in the first place. Yasaka's clothing is an ironic commentary on formal superficiality being social camouflage--how someone like Yasaka can capitalize on the family's reluctance to make him feel uncomfortable. Yasaka's clothing could represent a kind of revenge against a society that, as he suggests in his confession to Akie, instilled him with a warped set of virtues, and those same virtues ultimately led to him killing someone and going to prison. There are suggestions that Yasaka's visit to Toshio and Akie's home is a part of an elaborate revenge scheme, playing on their trust to get back at Toshio. After tragedy strikes, it becomes clear that Toshio never really trusted Yasaka, which begs the question as to why Toshio invited him at all. Was it out of guilt or obligation? Perhaps he was too polite to speak up--even to himself--about his feelings, which is the primary motif of Harmonium.
Subtle details about Toshio and Akie emerge gradually throughout Harmonium, like when the family is eating breakfast together. Akie is a church-going Protestant and prays before eating with Hotaru; Toshio is an atheist who resents his wife's religion, and eats without pausing while Akie and Hotaru bow their heads. Hotaru tells her mother about a multitude of spiders she in the park, and describes how one variety of spider devours its mother after birth. Hotaru asks Akie if the mother spider would go to Heaven, and Akie claims that she would because of her sacrifice; whether Toshio is merely being contrary, he later tells Hotaru that killers go to Hell, and since the mother spider must have killed her own mother when she was born, she logically cannot go to Heaven. This seems to be little more than a petty argument between bickering parents, using their child as a fulcrum for their own resentments, but it also speaks to the themes of the film. The latter portion of Harmonium deals with sacrifice, but also examines the futility of sacrifice and the hypocrisy of judging another without context. Without revealing key details from the ending, how would the audience judge the characters were they to see only the last ten minutes of Harmonium? Would they feel sympathy for Akie, or would they resent the sympathy they feel for Toshio, considering whose lives are more valuable to him?
Eight years after Yasaka has come into the family's lives, his presence remains as an eternal shadow looming over their existence--but to what degree was Yasaka directly responsible for their current state? Toshio is now more focused on his work than before, while Akie is a nervous wreck, phobic of dirt and a compulsive hand washer, as though she were trying to rid herself of her "sin" of being attracted to Yasaka. Toshio takes on another helper, a young man named Takashi (Taiga), whose presense echoes Yasaka, and inadvertently contributes to a late aftershock that forces Toshio and Akie to confront one another with their respective secrets. Mundane moments of melodrama hint at the deeper, primal doubts born from Toshio and Akie's repressed feelings and emotions, which they express in confusing and inappropriate ways with Takashi. Consider when they are travelling by van into the country, and Akie speaks ominously to Takashi about death. As she speaks, the van passes through a tunnel illuminated within by red lights, which casts a deep russet, blood-like glow over her. This reveals how embittered and fractured she has become, as opposes to the vivacious and warm woman earlier in the film--the scars of secrets finally come to light.
Recommended for: Fans of a suspenseful film that encourages its audience to observe subtle clues in mundane episodes of normal life, watching the cracks form as mistrust and deception takes root. Harmonium could also be seen as a cultural commentary on Japan, suggesting that being overly polite and formal is eventually psychologically harmful, because repressed emotions invariably emerge in inappropriate ways later.
Even after eight long years have passed, there is the same repression of emotion and truth that caused the family so much hardship before, as though they are forever caught in a behavioral rut that only gets worse with time. The quieter moments in Harmonium feel overly formal to Western audiences, but are not uncommon for a subdued Japanese drama--it is as though the film were commenting on the perils of being overly polite, a trait sometimes associated with Japanese society. Characters often apologize when there is no need, or conceal the cause of their emotions, like when Akie begins to cry after Yasaka confides his revelation after being sent to prison to her. The implication is that if the characters were honest with themselves and their feelings, these tragedies wouldn't have happened in the first place. Yasaka's clothing is an ironic commentary on formal superficiality being social camouflage--how someone like Yasaka can capitalize on the family's reluctance to make him feel uncomfortable. Yasaka's clothing could represent a kind of revenge against a society that, as he suggests in his confession to Akie, instilled him with a warped set of virtues, and those same virtues ultimately led to him killing someone and going to prison. There are suggestions that Yasaka's visit to Toshio and Akie's home is a part of an elaborate revenge scheme, playing on their trust to get back at Toshio. After tragedy strikes, it becomes clear that Toshio never really trusted Yasaka, which begs the question as to why Toshio invited him at all. Was it out of guilt or obligation? Perhaps he was too polite to speak up--even to himself--about his feelings, which is the primary motif of Harmonium.
Subtle details about Toshio and Akie emerge gradually throughout Harmonium, like when the family is eating breakfast together. Akie is a church-going Protestant and prays before eating with Hotaru; Toshio is an atheist who resents his wife's religion, and eats without pausing while Akie and Hotaru bow their heads. Hotaru tells her mother about a multitude of spiders she in the park, and describes how one variety of spider devours its mother after birth. Hotaru asks Akie if the mother spider would go to Heaven, and Akie claims that she would because of her sacrifice; whether Toshio is merely being contrary, he later tells Hotaru that killers go to Hell, and since the mother spider must have killed her own mother when she was born, she logically cannot go to Heaven. This seems to be little more than a petty argument between bickering parents, using their child as a fulcrum for their own resentments, but it also speaks to the themes of the film. The latter portion of Harmonium deals with sacrifice, but also examines the futility of sacrifice and the hypocrisy of judging another without context. Without revealing key details from the ending, how would the audience judge the characters were they to see only the last ten minutes of Harmonium? Would they feel sympathy for Akie, or would they resent the sympathy they feel for Toshio, considering whose lives are more valuable to him?
Eight years after Yasaka has come into the family's lives, his presence remains as an eternal shadow looming over their existence--but to what degree was Yasaka directly responsible for their current state? Toshio is now more focused on his work than before, while Akie is a nervous wreck, phobic of dirt and a compulsive hand washer, as though she were trying to rid herself of her "sin" of being attracted to Yasaka. Toshio takes on another helper, a young man named Takashi (Taiga), whose presense echoes Yasaka, and inadvertently contributes to a late aftershock that forces Toshio and Akie to confront one another with their respective secrets. Mundane moments of melodrama hint at the deeper, primal doubts born from Toshio and Akie's repressed feelings and emotions, which they express in confusing and inappropriate ways with Takashi. Consider when they are travelling by van into the country, and Akie speaks ominously to Takashi about death. As she speaks, the van passes through a tunnel illuminated within by red lights, which casts a deep russet, blood-like glow over her. This reveals how embittered and fractured she has become, as opposes to the vivacious and warm woman earlier in the film--the scars of secrets finally come to light.
Recommended for: Fans of a suspenseful film that encourages its audience to observe subtle clues in mundane episodes of normal life, watching the cracks form as mistrust and deception takes root. Harmonium could also be seen as a cultural commentary on Japan, suggesting that being overly polite and formal is eventually psychologically harmful, because repressed emotions invariably emerge in inappropriate ways later.