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Eureka (Shinji Aoyama, 2000); We Are Family
Topic Started: Jun 2 2015, 03:17 AM (360 Views)
DT.
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Let them eat Prozac
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Another slow-burning Japanese film from the turn of the millenium, Eureka further explores unorthodox family units by looking at surrogate families (as the back of the DVD conveniently explains):

Following a deadly bus hijacking in southwest Japan, the three survivors - Makato (Koji Yakusho), the bus driver; Kozue (Aoi Miyazaki), a young girl; and Naoki (Masaru Miyazaki), her older brother - find further tragedy in their personal lives. When the traumatized Makato eventually contacts Kozue and Naoki two years later, he moves into their home and becomes a father figure for the two children, who have stopped speaking. The trio are then joined by Akihiko (Yohichiroh Saitoh), Kozue and Naoki's college student cousin, and together this odd surrogate family embarks on a road trip across Japan. However, a string of murders appears to be following them and threatens to permanently disrupt their quest to regain normal lives.

Clocking in at more than three and a half hours, Shinji Aoyama's EUREKA is a daunting film that rewards patient viewers with an utterly unique and moving cinematic experience. Shot in black and white with a sepia tone, the movie features breathtaking photography by Masaki Tamra.


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For first-time viewers wary of the film’s length, Fred Camper discusses it in his review for the Chicago Reader:

“In part an action picture, a road movie, a whodunit, and a slasher film, Eureka is more deeply about the immeasurable and lasting damage suffered by those who experience senseless violence. For much of the picture, three survivors of a shooting seem doomed to "wander forever between the winds," to quote a line from John Ford's The Searchers, a film Aoyama cites as an inspiration.

“While the movie has taut, chilling moments, most of the time it appears to mirror the shell-shocked trauma of its characters. As Aoyama told a reporter, "It is as if they are pursued by an endless tidal wave preventing them from regaining their balanced lives." Critics have given the film mixed reviews. Stephen Holden of the New York Times wrote, "Eureka never comes to life....In pursuing its aesthetic agenda so single-mindedly, the movie leaves the characters behind in the muck." Stephen Cole of Canada's National Post was discomfited by "long, barren sequences where characters stare off into space or wander aimlessly through the frame."

“These critics seem to be judging the film by the character-centered, action-driven standards of commercial cinema, where many foreign directors also march to the Hollywood beat. Those "long, barren sequences" enrich Eureka as surprisingly powerful and precise articulations of the void within the characters. And as thoroughly Japanese excursions into an open space drained of traditional meanings, they take on a hypnotic, meditative quality of their own.”
Edited by DT., Jun 2 2015, 03:34 AM.
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Brotherdeacon
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A great film, good luck.
“Somebody has to do something, and it’s just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us. “
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wba
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Love this film.

Used to be my No.1 favorite film for a short while about 12 years ago (so tough luck for your opponent, if I'll vote on this match ;) ).
Edited by wba, Jun 3 2015, 11:33 PM.
To please the majority is the requirement of the Planet Cinema. As far as I'm concerned, I don't make a concession to viewers, these victims of life, who think that a film is made only for their enjoyment, and who know nothing about their own existence.

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