Family Romance, LLC. (2019)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2019
	Director: Werner Herzog (Into the Inferno, Lo and Behold - Reveries of the Connected World, Aguirre the Wrath of Gods, Nosferatu the Vampyre, Fitzcarraldo)
	Actors: Miki Fujimaki, Umetani Hideyasu, Shun Ishigaki
	Country: USA
	Genre: Documentary, Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 10.06.2020, NCF2020, 14" computer screen
Synopsis: A man is hired to impersonate the missing father of a young girl.
Review: This docu-fiction is directed by Werner Herzog, known for the classic Aguirre Wrath of Gods and Fitzcarraldo with Klaus Kinski, more recently Queen of the Desert with Nicole Kidman and the Documentaries Grizzly Man, Into the Inferno and Lo and Behold, Reveries of the Connected World. He also recently acted in the Disney Star Wars TV-series The Mandalorian. Family Romance LLC doesn't feature his soothing voice as it is not a pure Documentary that he narrates, but you can watch this interview if you miss it. You will also learn a bit about the genesis and production of this project. In particular how he learned about those companies in Japan which rent people to pass as friend or family member for a period of time. From the movie synopsis it sounds weird (and it may be in our Western countries), but in Japan it is just normal. The main actor of the movie, Ishii Yuichi, is not professional but in fact the CEO of the real-life company named Family Romance LLC, and manages over 1000 employees! Werner Herzog shot the movie himself using a reduced crew and a small camera. The non-pro actors were mostly left to improvise around guidelines that he provided via his interpreter. This all translates into a strange-looking docu-fiction, sometimes leaning towards South American TV-novella, but still under the control of its experienced director. Indeed the structure of the movie gives it cohesion: scenes of a main story about the fake father, interleaved with several examples of application for such services as the company provides, all inspired by real ones. On top of the structure, you notice that the movie is going somewhere, unlike in more experimental movies like Kinta and Ginji that we have seen just before at the same Nippon Connection 2020 Festival (link to the article with video review of Family Romance, LLC). Werner Herzog has a message to pass (spoiler, highlight to read: the man of a thousand faces looses grip on what is real or what isn't), and in fact it could have been the arc of a big-budget Sci-Fi or Anticipation movie made on the topic (a-la-Blade Runner), had Werner Herzog chosen to do so. Instead of this hypothetical blockbuster, we have a real quickly-produced, cheap-looking but close to the heart project that shows to the World an unknown side of Japan. Totally at its place at the Nippon Connection Festival.
Rating: 5 /10