Werner Herzog has long had an interest in the interplay between fact and fiction and an individual's personal interpretation of those entities, with films including Cave Of Forgotten Dreams and Encounters At The End Of The World often revealing unexpected truths about the participants that go beyond the surface, while others like the tragic Grizzly Man highlight the folly of allowing belief to triumph over empirical evidence.
All of which means a company like Family Romance LLC - a real-life Japanese firm that specialises in hiring out people to pretend to be family members - is the perfect venture around which Herzog constructs a narrative to explore some of the things that make the modern world tick. Yorgos Lanthimos fans might remember he took on a similar concept with Alps, but Herzog's approach is, unsurprisingly, considerably more ruminative and less downbeat.
Yuichi Ishii is the boss of the film and plays a version of.
All of which means a company like Family Romance LLC - a real-life Japanese firm that specialises in hiring out people to pretend to be family members - is the perfect venture around which Herzog constructs a narrative to explore some of the things that make the modern world tick. Yorgos Lanthimos fans might remember he took on a similar concept with Alps, but Herzog's approach is, unsurprisingly, considerably more ruminative and less downbeat.
Yuichi Ishii is the boss of the film and plays a version of.
- 7/15/2020
- by Amber Wilkinson
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Werner Herzog's Family Romance, LLC is having a free virtual preview on Mubi in many countries on July 3, 2020. Following this preview, it will be showing exclusively on Mubi in the many countries in the series Luminaries.The curious staging of Werner Herzog’s Family Romance, LLC., can be best understood through an event that occurred in November of 2018, when Japanese public broadcasting station Nhk aired a documentary special on Family Romance, a family rental company founded by Yuichi Ishii. The 30-minute special featured a man who hires a wife and kids after his wife’s death. To the audiences’ dismay, however, Nhk—and the New Yorker, which also produced a lengthy profile on Ishii—later found that even the man himself (including other clients featured) was an employee of Family Romance. In its follow-up investigation of the matter, the Wall Street Journal reported that phone calls to Ishii and his company were left unanswered,...
- 7/3/2020
- MUBI
Werner Herzog’s soul is still dancing after 58 years of filmmaking. The acclaimed German filmmaker returns to the screen with Family Romance, LLC, which explores Japan’s rising “rent-a-family” industry. While the story is pure fiction, Herzog blurs the lines between reality and fiction by shooting the film with the authenticity of a documentary. Furthermore, the film stars Yuichi Ishii, the real-life founder of a Japanese rental family service known as Family Romance.
In the film, Ishii is hired by various clients to fulfill markedly different needs, but the most substantial storyline involves Ishii posing as the long-lost father ...
In the film, Ishii is hired by various clients to fulfill markedly different needs, but the most substantial storyline involves Ishii posing as the long-lost father ...
Werner Herzog’s soul is still dancing after 58 years of filmmaking. The acclaimed German filmmaker returns to the screen with Family Romance, LLC, which explores Japan’s rising “rent-a-family” industry. While the story is pure fiction, Herzog blurs the lines between reality and fiction by shooting the film with the authenticity of a documentary. Furthermore, the film stars Yuichi Ishii, the real-life founder of a Japanese rental family service known as Family Romance.
In the film, Ishii is hired by various clients to fulfill markedly different needs, but the most substantial storyline involves Ishii posing as the long-lost father ...
In the film, Ishii is hired by various clients to fulfill markedly different needs, but the most substantial storyline involves Ishii posing as the long-lost father ...
Don’t label Werner Herzog’s new film “Family Romance, LLC” as minor or slight. Though Herzog shot the under 90-minute film himself and utilized non-professional actors, the German auteur calls “Family Romance, LLC” one of his “essential films,” saying it is as important to understanding the human experience as is his masterpiece “Aguirre, The Wrath of God.”
“I think we should be very cautious with trying to find categories and squeeze it into it,” Herzog said. “One thing is clear. It is one of my essential films out of a handful of very essential things that look deep into our human condition.”
Herzog’s “Family Romance, LLC,” which premiered at Cannes last year and will land on Mubi on Saturday, examines a business in Japan in which patrons can rent stand-in actors to pose as family members for any occasion. If you’re embarrassed about your father’s drunkenness,...
“I think we should be very cautious with trying to find categories and squeeze it into it,” Herzog said. “One thing is clear. It is one of my essential films out of a handful of very essential things that look deep into our human condition.”
Herzog’s “Family Romance, LLC,” which premiered at Cannes last year and will land on Mubi on Saturday, examines a business in Japan in which patrons can rent stand-in actors to pose as family members for any occasion. If you’re embarrassed about your father’s drunkenness,...
- 7/2/2020
- by Brian Welk
- The Wrap
Werner Herzog's Family Romance, LLC is having a free virtual preview on Mubi in many countries on July 3, 2020. Following this preview, it will be showing exclusively on Mubi in the many countries in the series Luminaries.My name is Werner Herzog. You are just about to watch my new film Family Romance, LLC. I put “LLC” in the title because romance has become a business in Japan. The young entrepreneur in Tokyo, Yuichi Ishii, founded an agency that sends out rented missing friends who are family members for a big wedding, or in my case, he rents out an impostor who poses for a young girl as her father that she never met.I think it was important. There was something big that I immediately sensed: where everything was fake, everything was done by impostors, everything was alive, everything was a performance, and yet the authenticity of emotions is always there.
- 7/1/2020
- MUBI
London-based production, finance and sales company Film Constellation and the global curated streaming service Mubi have partnered to host an exclusive premiere of Werner Herzog’s “Family Romance, LLC” on July 3 in the U.S., featuring an exclusive introduction and interview with Herzog.
In other international territories, the company is collaborating with the local theatrical distributor, including U.K. distributor Modern Films, Artplex in Brazil, PVR in India, I Wonder in Italy, who will participate in the preview event for their local release.
Herzog, who not only directed but also served as writer and cinematographer, will introduce the virtual premiere and conclude with an exclusive 15 minute Q&a.
The special preview will be hosted on Mubi and will be available to stream for free for 24-hours in more than 150 countries, including the U.S. and Canada.
“Family Romance, LLC” is the latest feature from Herzog. Receiving its premiere at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival,...
In other international territories, the company is collaborating with the local theatrical distributor, including U.K. distributor Modern Films, Artplex in Brazil, PVR in India, I Wonder in Italy, who will participate in the preview event for their local release.
Herzog, who not only directed but also served as writer and cinematographer, will introduce the virtual premiere and conclude with an exclusive 15 minute Q&a.
The special preview will be hosted on Mubi and will be available to stream for free for 24-hours in more than 150 countries, including the U.S. and Canada.
“Family Romance, LLC” is the latest feature from Herzog. Receiving its premiere at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival,...
- 6/29/2020
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
"You create illusions to make the lives of your clients better." Mubi has released a new official Us trailer for the docu-drama film Family Romance, LLC, the latest narrative feature from beloved prolific German filmmaker Werner Herzog. This premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last year, and we also posted a review from this year's Rotterdam Film Festival (Iffr). This was shot in Japan, with Japanese actors, in the Japanese language. And it's about a special business that can help provide romance, or friends, or family, or followers – all for money. The main story follows a man who is hired to impersonate the missing father of a 12 year old girl. Starring Yuichi Ishii and Mahiro Tanimoto. It's another of these strange Herzog social commentaries about disconnection and love and how we fabricate connection to find some happiness in life. Mubi is also hosting a "virtual premiere" + an extended online Q...
- 6/25/2020
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Within the ranks of the great masters of cinema, the works of German director Werner Herzog stand out as perhaps one of the boldest body of work of a filmmaker. While still largely known for his collaborations with actors Klaus Kinski, Herzog’s work has moved far beyond masterpieces like “Fitzcarraldo” or “Nosferatu”, focusing on works of great thematic variety as feature films as well as documentaries. In his new work, “Family Romance, LLC” blends both feature film and documentary while telling the story of the real existing agency Family Romance, managed by Yuichi Ishii, who is also the star of the film. Through its various stories, some comedic, some more dramatic, Herzog explores the issue of modern relationships and lonesomeness in the 21st century.
“Family Romance, LLC” is screening at Nippon Connection 2020
For many years now “Family Romance, LLC” has been in business, offering the service of renting out...
“Family Romance, LLC” is screening at Nippon Connection 2020
For many years now “Family Romance, LLC” has been in business, offering the service of renting out...
- 6/16/2020
- by Rouven Linnarz
- AsianMoviePulse
One of the most damaging aspects of neo-liberalism has been its commodification of human relationships. This is demonstrated and analyzed in a New Yorker article entitled "Japan's Rent-a-Family industry," and that same article is the basis of Werner Herzog's newest film, Family Romance, LLC, named after the profiled company. Herzog, however, is not much interested in politics. Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) is a colonialist scenario depicted as a search for the sublime; in Lo & Behold: Reveries of the Connected World (2016), Herzog is more interested in capitalists and their victims than capitalism as such. Such is the case in Family Romance, in which the casting of non-professional actors, including Yuichi Ishii, the founder of Family Romance, as himself, is the tell. For Herzog, psychic effects matter more than political conditions. The mockumentary film begins with Ishii waiting to meet with Mahiro, a twelve-year old daughter of a long-divorced mother.
- 2/5/2020
- by Forrest Cardamenis
- firstshowing.net
From the bustle of neon-lit Shinjuku and its ultramodern skyscrapers to the traditional scenery of Mt. Fuji, cherry blossoms, and Shinto shrines, Tokyo has served as a source of creative inspiration for generations of international filmmakers. Anticipating the 2020 Summer Games, when the eyes of the world will once again fall upon Japan’s dynamic capital, Tokyo Stories: Japan in the Global Imagination considers the ways Japan—and the elusive concept of “Japaneseness” —is rendered and interpreted outside its borders with a revealing selection of Tokyo-set films by foreign directors, including Japanese co-productions, Hollywood blockbusters, and European arthouse favorites.
The series kicks off November 8 with Werner Herzog’s latest film Family Romance, LLC, a quasi-documentary narrative feature concerning the function of role-playing in matters of love and business, screening in New York for the first time since it debuted at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. Herzog is one of...
The series kicks off November 8 with Werner Herzog’s latest film Family Romance, LLC, a quasi-documentary narrative feature concerning the function of role-playing in matters of love and business, screening in New York for the first time since it debuted at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. Herzog is one of...
- 10/20/2019
- by Don Anelli
- AsianMoviePulse
Had you searched the words “Family Romance” a few weeks before the Cannes Film Festival you would have come across a site for a Tokyo-based business. You would also have found a 3,500 word New Yorker article examining that business’ obscurity. Family Romance, the article explained, is “one of a number of agencies in Japan that rent out replacement relatives.” Kids flown the coop? Someone stiffing you on the grandkid front? Recently bereaved? Fear not, the good people of Family Romance have you covered.
The site still makes the first page of Google, at time of writing, although by now it’s nestled amongst articles relating to Werner Herzog’s latest film. As openhearted as it is characteristically bizarre, Family Romance, LLC is a fascinating dive into that world, a movie that’s neither documentary nor docudrama exactly, but a kind of documentary-once-removed. It’s as if Herzog has made a...
The site still makes the first page of Google, at time of writing, although by now it’s nestled amongst articles relating to Werner Herzog’s latest film. As openhearted as it is characteristically bizarre, Family Romance, LLC is a fascinating dive into that world, a movie that’s neither documentary nor docudrama exactly, but a kind of documentary-once-removed. It’s as if Herzog has made a...
- 5/22/2019
- by Rory O'Connor
- The Film Stage
For most of his career, Werner Herzog has oscillated between narrative and documentary features, injecting his idiosyncratic worldview into both of them. With the odd microbudget “Family Romance, LLC,” he brings those two modes together for his strangest movie of the decade, and that’s saying something for a guy whose 3D documentary on cave paintings ended with albino alligators.
A scrappy drama shot on the fly during a stopover in Japan, Herzog’s minor-key story revolves around Japan’s bizarre rent-a-family business, a concept so Herzogian it’s a wonder the filmmaker didn’t dream it up on his own. While the movie’s rough production values and meandering plot never quite gel, “Family Romance, LLC” is a fascinating convergence of filmmaker and subject, providing the rare opportunity for Herzog to bury his observations in the material at hand.
To some degree, however, the movie is a hybrid narrative...
A scrappy drama shot on the fly during a stopover in Japan, Herzog’s minor-key story revolves around Japan’s bizarre rent-a-family business, a concept so Herzogian it’s a wonder the filmmaker didn’t dream it up on his own. While the movie’s rough production values and meandering plot never quite gel, “Family Romance, LLC” is a fascinating convergence of filmmaker and subject, providing the rare opportunity for Herzog to bury his observations in the material at hand.
To some degree, however, the movie is a hybrid narrative...
- 5/22/2019
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
The Notebook is covering Cannes with an on-going correspondence between critic Leonardo Goi and editor Daniel Kasman.Family Romance, LLC.Dear Leo,Believe it or not, the freshest film to premiere thus far at Cannes is by a 76-year-old. Werner Herzog’s prodigious output over the last decade, especially in the documentary field, may have produced a weariness or skepticism to new films from the New German Cinema master, but his second film to premiere in 2019, Family Romance, LLC., is something special indeed. Self-financed and shot by Herzog himself on location in Japan, it has the raw immediacy of gonzo adventure undertaken with minimal planning but maximum enthusiasm. Grabbing hold of a tantalizingly strange Japanese phenomenon brought to wider attention by a 2018 New Yorker article, Herzog seems to have bypassed or preempted the inevitable Hollywood adaptation of this story and flown directly to Japan to create something spontaneously and freely,...
- 5/21/2019
- MUBI
In the opening scene of Werner Herzog’s new feature “Family Romance, LLC,” a well-dressed, slightly nervous-looking man stops a 12-year old girl in Tokyo and explains that he’s her father, who left the family when she was only 16 months old and would now like the rekindle the relationship. The man, Yuichi, and the girl, Mahiro, then have a lovely interlude looking at the cherry blossoms in Yoyogi Park.
It’s all very bucolic until the next scene, which reveals that he’s actually been hired by Mahiro’s mother to impersonate her real father, who is deceased.
And “Family Romance, LLC” just gets odder from there — especially if you realize that the guy playing the “dad,” Yuichi Ishii, actually runs a real Japanese company called Family Romance, and he’s playing himself doing what he actually does for a living. A curious little meditation on the extent to...
It’s all very bucolic until the next scene, which reveals that he’s actually been hired by Mahiro’s mother to impersonate her real father, who is deceased.
And “Family Romance, LLC” just gets odder from there — especially if you realize that the guy playing the “dad,” Yuichi Ishii, actually runs a real Japanese company called Family Romance, and he’s playing himself doing what he actually does for a living. A curious little meditation on the extent to...
- 5/18/2019
- by Steve Pond
- The Wrap
For those raised on a diet of hot dogs and hamburgers, think back to the first time you ever heard of sushi, and the idea of eating raw fish. Werner Herzog’s “Family Romance, LLC” extends a comparably otherizing attitude to Japan’s niche rent-a-relative phenomenon, exposing for Western eyes a peculiar Tokyo-based company that caters to fulfilling nonsexual but undeniably intimate fantasies for its clientele. Weird? Yes, but so is the way Americans convince their kids to climb into the laps of white-bearded strangers in Santa costumes.
Homo sapiens are a strange species, and few capture that more satisfyingly than Herzog, even if this is clearly one of his minor works. Not quite 90 minutes, the film might actually be more effective at half the length. As is, it feels padded with slow-motion footage, long shots in which characters stare out in wordless contemplation, and an awkward dream sequence involving a gang of swordless samurai.
Homo sapiens are a strange species, and few capture that more satisfyingly than Herzog, even if this is clearly one of his minor works. Not quite 90 minutes, the film might actually be more effective at half the length. As is, it feels padded with slow-motion footage, long shots in which characters stare out in wordless contemplation, and an awkward dream sequence involving a gang of swordless samurai.
- 5/18/2019
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
The Cannes Film Festival, cinema’s most esteemed yearly event, begins this week. While we’ll soon be on the ground providing coverage, today brings a preview of what we’re most looking forward to among the eclectic line-up, ranging from films in competition to select titles on the various sidebars. Check out our most-anticipated features below and follow our complete coverage here throughout the month. Make sure to also follow our contributors on Twitter: Rory O’Connor, Giovanni Marchini Camia, Leonardo Goi, and Ed Frankl.
20. Family Romance, LLC (Werner Herzog)
The recent narrative output of Werner Herzog hasn’t been stellar, but for his next feature, the intrepid director is stepping far outside his comfort zone. The Japanese-language Family Romance, LLC follows a family in which a father goes missing, and a man is hired to impersonate him. Starring non-professional actors Yuichi Ishii and Mahiro Tanimoto), with music by Ernst Reijseger,...
20. Family Romance, LLC (Werner Herzog)
The recent narrative output of Werner Herzog hasn’t been stellar, but for his next feature, the intrepid director is stepping far outside his comfort zone. The Japanese-language Family Romance, LLC follows a family in which a father goes missing, and a man is hired to impersonate him. Starring non-professional actors Yuichi Ishii and Mahiro Tanimoto), with music by Ernst Reijseger,...
- 5/13/2019
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
"Every day... I must play many different roles." A teaser trailer has debuted online for the next Werner Herzog film, and it's not at all what you're expecting. Family Romance, LLC is the latest film directed by Herzog, and it's not a documentary like most assumed (since it just came out of nowhere). It's actually a narrative feature film, and will be premiering at the Cannes Film Festival later this month. Just wait - it gets even better. This was shot in Japan, with Japanese actors, in the Japanese language. And it's about a special business that can help provide romance, or friends, or family, or followers – all for money. The main story follows a man who is hired to impersonate the missing father of a 12 year old girl. Starring Yuichi Ishii and Mahiro Tanimoto. This looks a bit odd, like it's some gonzo filmmaking about how fake our societies are becoming,...
- 5/10/2019
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
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