The film’s insights into the isolation evident in the relationships most take for granted — marriages, parent-child connections and long-term friendships — don’t merely hit their targets; they smash them with a sledgehammer.

Shot in a meticulous yet unmannered style, the film provides the veteran cast with an ideal framework to mount masterful performances.

Throughout Harmonium, writer-director Kôji Fukada works in a rapt and lucid hyper-textural style that suggests a merging of the sensibilities of Alfred Hitchcock and Yasujirô Ozu.

Harmonium builds to something peculiar and unusual by its close, and has a melancholic, discordant, uneasy sustain that lingers long after.

The actors navigate their uncertain motivations with finesse — especially Asano, who captures not just the shell-shocked daze of someone trying to readjust to life on the outside but also a carefully, unnervingly suppressed wellspring of resentment.