Yet such a bleak story! A bus is hijacked. People die. There is no evident reason - the crime is random, chaotic, motiveless. The survivors are the driver and two school children, a brother and sister. Now, leap forward two years. How have they coped? What effect has the violence had on their lives?

The children have lost their parents and are alone in a big house. They do not speak. The bus driver moves in with them, acting as their parents, or simply as someone who can understand their pain and confusion. Perhaps the only one who can. The children appear to communicate telepathically. Meanwhile, a series of murders has begun and the prime suspect is the bus driver.

The driver looks for some cathartic experience to help them get on with their lives. He buys a bus. Together they transform it into a mobile home and set off on a journey. Bus drivers follow the same route day in, day out. But this is a magical mystery tour, a process of self-discovery.

Shinji Aoyama says that he was influenced by John Ford's "The Searchers", in which John Wayne searches for a young Natalie Wood, a child kidnapped in an Indian raid. "Eureka" doesn't have the overt violence and anger of Wayne's character. Makoto, the driver, is a much gentler individual. But the theme of the film is one of searching - for the lost voices, the lost emotions, the loss of self.

Does violence contaminate the victim? Makoto wonders if it has infected them all. As a victim of violence he has been powerless. Perhaps the only way a victim can recover is to exert power over others, to violate, terrorise, and brutalise others. Would the act of murder free him of the guilt of survival? They take off in the bus in search of rebirth.

"Eureka" is a long film - three and a half hours. Its plot is a narrow strand. This is the antithesis of the action movie. Much of the filming is in long shot, with the actors distant figures. There are no close-ups. The visuals are extraordinary. Much use is made of the intense contrast of black and white - night time shots, use of sunlight and shade, dense dark scenes with only a central pool of light.

The camera frames a scene and holds it, dwells on it languidly. There are long silences. The film could have been cut in half, but this frozen timelessness is an essential part of the experience the survivors endure.

There is virtually no music - a couple of almost ironic intrusions. The sound is entirely naturalistic. The black and white filming seems to enhance the notion of reality. It's as if you are watching a documentary, intruding on the intimate lives of victims, watching through distant cameras with only the sounds of nature and the modern world to intrude.

And so much of the film presents you with pattern and graphic imagery: the stripes and checks of clothing, the stripes of wooden boards, the patterns of the natural world, of roads and railways. The pattern of the bus driver's routine has been shattered. For the victims there is no longer any pattern to life, just a bland sameness, day after day.

Instead, life flows like water. Much use is made of the images of water, of the natural cycle of rain flowing though the streams and rivers back to the sea. In the sea lies rebirth, in the sea lies hope and self-discovery.

But this is one of the most joyously hopeful and positive films I've ever seen. Bleak, set in a rural Japan which offers up none of the usual clichés of Japanese life, it transcends its extraordinary visual richness to offer up a hymn to the struggle of modern man, woman and child, searching for an explanation, for a reason for life in the face of violence and the unpredictable. It is a potent, powerful statement about the need to be reborn, to rediscover self and a sense of purpose.

An outstanding film, but not one which is going to capture everyone's imagination. It's a film you grow into. It's a film which you visually enjoy. It's a film in which, as you recognise the struggle faced by the survivors, you too begin to imagine your own need for a pilgrimage of self-discovery. Outstanding, but I suggest you rent it in the first instance ... and see how quickly it grows on you.

A very rewarding experience
Review date: 2005-01-30 Rating: 10 out of 10

Let the arty pretentious element of you emerge by watching this film and telling your friends how great it is. They'll think "hmm yeah, four hours? and sepia? no thanks!" but if you get one of them to watch it they'll thank you forever. This film is incredible. It's slow moving and pretty eventless but the film is about emotion and character development and not direct action. This is a film where what does'nt take place and what is not said is as important as what does happen. It'll make you think and it'll make you love life. Eureka is one great adventure. Describing the plot or telling you how great the acting is pointless, thats all you need to know is that it's probably one of the most beautiful films ever made. Intense, absorbing and infinitely inspiring.

Modern Masterpiece
Review date: 2004-03-25 Rating: 10 out of 10

You spend your whole life looking for a film that works for you. When you feel depressed or are just looking for something to understand you, you look towards film when people are incapable. EUREKA did it for me. A four-hour long epic that reached straight into my heart and soul and refused to let go. Shinji Aoyama has created a breath-taking piece of modern cinema.
Many people will never have sat through a film of this calibre, and many just don't have the patience. Which is such a shame because, it beats most films out there today.
"Mesmerising, ravishing" says Time Out; "Moving... the acting is sublime" says Uncut; "Stunning.. deeply affecting" says The Independent; "Beautiful.. a moving pschological fable about trauma, loss, mourning and healing - a mesmerising journey across genre boundaries" says Fiilm Comment.
Shinji Aoyama's film will speak to me for the rest of my life and I will speak of it whenever I speak of film. Not to see this is a crime - pick up your copy today and you will forever be moved by the medium of cinema. No other film will seem worthwhile.

Captivating.
Review date: 2003-11-16 Rating: 10 out of 10

A veeery long film, but one that - unlike, say, Titanic - deserves every second.

A bus driver, and his passengers, are hijacked and are left somewhat scarred by the event. Some time later the driver and two of the passengers - a boy and a girl - meet up again, and decide to journey around the country together (yes, in a bus).

As usual for Japanese films, the premise is unusual, original, and compelling... and thankfully the film itself lives up to the intense opening scenes. The acting is not overdone and always appropriate, the subtitles very readable and easy to follow, and the directing is flawless. If you don't mind the slow pace, you will be well rewarded by this classic piece of Japanese cinema.

Note: the transfer seemed exemplary, with no obvious visual artifacts. Very rich black and white film, and clear stereo sound. Not much in the way of extras though.

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