These
neurotic bourgeoisie party guests would feel at home in the caustic plays of
Yasmina Reza, but they live in Japan, the home of the deferential apology. That
makes it especially awkward when they tear into each other or make improper
advances in At the Terrace (trailer here), Kenji Yamauchi’s
deliciously cutting adaptation of his stage play, which screens during the 2017 Japan Cuts Festival of New Japanese Film in New York.
You
know how they say parties always end up in the kitchen? Apparently, when you
have servants to handle the food, like the well-heeled Soejimas, you wind up on
the well-furnished terrace instead. This was an affair for their various work
colleagues and clients, so it was not supposed to be fun. Nevertheless, a
handful of stragglers will get pretty drunk.
The
comedy of miscommunication starts when the hostess Kazumi Soejima busts
late-comer Tanoura for not so subtly leering at Haruko Saito, the wife of one
of two Saitos at the party. While her husband is hale and hearty, the other
Saito remains in a weakened condition from the gastric-bypass surgery that has
made him unrecognizable to the guests who had met him before. To compound poor
Tanoura’s embarrassment, Madame Soejima will expose his infatuation to her
husband the assorted Saitos, who all try to be decent and forgiving about it.
Nevertheless, when Tanoura nervously praises her sleek alabaster arms, his compliment
will be flogged like a dead horse and brutally driven into the ground.
You
might expect a wry comedy of bad manners like Terrace would suffer in translation, but it is still incisively
funny. This is the sort of film that we can’t help laughing at, even as we
wince at the characters’ discomfort. The details of their lives are very
Japanese, but their macro issues are still quite universal.
The
entire ensemble is uniformly strong, but my oh my, is Kei Ishibashi ever a
force to be reckoned with as Kazumi, the maybe not so hospitable hostess. You
have to see her sawing her guests off at the knees to fully understand the
acerbic sting of her performance. Yet, as Haruko (the one with the arms), Kami
Hiraiwa hangs with her and maybe even one-ups her, when they start verbally
mixing it up. On the other end of the spectrum, understated Takashi Okabe is
quietly poignant as the newly thin and divorced Saito.
