This chilly tale of violent secrets and unvoiced misery relies heavily on the skill of actors who seem to know that one false move could tip the whole enterprise into comedy.
It shocks us long after we walk out of the theater, not with the short-lived scare of a jump cut or grisly image, but with something darker that lives quietly in the unexamined places of the soul.
Rather than employ Harmonium's setup for humorous or bittersweet insights, Fukada distills the conceit into his most harrowing, tragic parable to date.
Just as in the best old-school, Cain-style noir, Fukada's film is eloquent about the fragile privileges of modern urban life and the hidden lies it can be built upon.
Throughout Harmonium, writer-director Kôji Fukada works in a rapt and lucid hyper-textural style that suggests a merging of the sensibilities of Alfred Hitchcock and Yasujirô Ozu.
