Picture of the movie Family Romance, LLC. © DR
Family Romance: the trials and tribulations of a fictional family man
Director Werner Herzog doesn't like to discuss his films. He prefers the freshness of a first viewing, rather than written accounts. This unusual filmmaker was one of the figureheads of the New German Cinema period in the 1960s and 1970s, and is the brain behind the script, dialogue and staging for his new film, Family Romance, LLC., presented here in Special Screening.
A man (Yuichi Ishii) is hired to play the missing father of a 12-year-old girl (Mahiro Tanimoto). By shining a light on this staged family love, Werner Herzog lifts the veil over a phenomenon that arose under the Empire of Japan, a new profession invented by the film's actor, Yuichi Ishii, who is in fact a real-life "actor of the everyday". Because in Japan, according to him, it's about style over substance. Need a fictional father to attend your child's school meetings? Yuichi Ishii, the man who founded the Family Romance agency a dozen years ago, is on hand to help. Looking for a lover you can hire to spark jealousy? Yuichi Ishii can get you one. A distant uncle for a family gathering? Look no further. As a master conjurer of à la carte social bonds, Yuichi Ishii sees no need to look deeper than the surface. And it would appear that taking on the lead role in Werner Herzog's film was no trouble at all, given the emphasis he places on keeping up appearances in his daily life.
Artistically similar to German expressionism, the ever-exploratory Werner Herzog, sometimes nicknamed the "director of the impossible" for his chaotic, turbulent filming (Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes [Aguirre, the Wrath of God] in 1972, or Fitzcarraldo in 1982) brings us a metaphorical mise en abime on the essence of acting and directing.
