Harmonium

No one makes family dramas quite like the Japanese, and director Koji Fukada puts a shocking twist on the genre with this seething study of domestic discontent and the comfort of strangers. Emerging from prison after serving 11 years for murder, Tadanobu Asano's Yasaka insinuates himself into the family of metal shop boss Toshio (Kanji Furutachi) and his prudish wife (Mariko Tsutsui). But, while Yasaka works hard and helps the couple's tweenage daughter with her harmonium lessons, a sinister sense of foreboding begins to simmer in the run-up to a tragedy that then pitches the action eight years into the future when another stranger arrives at the workshop. Revisiting themes explored in Hospitalité (2010), Fukada's sixth feature exposes the fissures in a fragmenting society increasingly beset by isolation. The performances are chillingly restrained, as is Fukada's forensic direction - his use of natural light makes the sombre wood-panelled interiors feel all the more oppressive as the jarring cacophony of the harmonium echoes all around.