Some things I liked some I did not.

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Shinji Aoyama's Eureka concerns three people branded by a traumatic event (a busjack) who then try to cope with their issues by reliving the path with a new bus. The protagonists are two siblings, Naoki and Kazue, mute ever since the accident, and the bus driver Makoto. Eureka is a fascinating but exhausting experience - it lasts over 3,5 hours.It is shot in a sepia tone for its entirety, except for the very final shot which is in color. In the end, Makoto and Kazue overcome their scarred past and start a new life. The scene where Kazue throws away some shells named after the most influential people in her life (thus making way for rebirth) is followed by an enlightenment of sorts, both in the terms of transition from sepia to color and from traumatic stress to a better life. This may be why this movie is called Eureka. The flow of the movie is very meditative and memorable. There are many moments of pure silence and of little to no action. It moves very slow, but has a hypnotic ring to it and you can't help but feel drawn to it after being confused in the beginning. Aoyama uses multiple repetitive or cyclical patterns all throughout; the seesaw-resembling thing by the window constantly going up and down, Makoto turning the lamp on and off continuously, or the scene where he drives around and around on his bike with Naoki. It all seems very realistic and like a window to someone's life, and in the end makes you feel a lot more for the characters, not to mention the acting is excellent as well. The performances are just incredible.Aoyama's movie contains many panoramic shots which stay still for a long time and follow the characters around, but there are also many recurring motifs like bottles of water or the starry decoration hanging by the rear bus window. Some shots are unforgettable, like the one at the beginning, when the busjacker points the gun at the children with his dying breath. The occasional scenes with strong dramatic value are made even more powerful by the movie's slow pace. The music isn't always there, but when it is, it fits the scenes beautifully with its celestial, atmospheric quality.Eureka does go on for a bit too long, but it is truly one of the most unique cinematic experiences you'll encounter. It's a film well worth watching if you have time to kill or are into slow-paced movies.9,5/10

A film beyond film; the rarest transfusion of worlds – a step thru the rift of definition, into the realms of the sublime. Poetry of the unknown chasms of existence – perfect reflections of the ghost and its flight. A journey, a search, beyond incidents, externalizations, time and space; emotions striving to hold on, to decode something of the abstraction of consciousness; of reality; of life (both on the basic primordial level and on the modern plateau). Aoyama has achieved a transcendtion of form, function, media, matter and expression; as if all the years of brooding had channeled into these three hours and forty minutes.A deal no doubt must have been struck with time and space themselves; to allow themselves to be exposed and laid bare before the camera – to be carved out of each other and shaped and molded by human hands; sculptures made of moments and distance. Claustrophobia with the known universe. Movement coerced into a go-between, relaying messages from the outer rims.Intensity is felt with every frame; the intensity of ambiguousness – the intensity of simply living thru time, at existing at the hands of the confusion of existence. Characters sift thru a war of existence. The individual; the self contained star drifting thru space, and the rootless feeling permeating the universe are here held open and dissected as if the individual's confinement were a show of fireworks. Isolation comes as natural drift, as if expected as wind thru the leaves of a tree, never forced or romanticized. Communication is reborn, and language held at bay; its deceiving tendrils plucked from their hold within the brain. The irrational is once again confronted face to face instead of by way of masked handshake in the dark. Open spaces and landscapes externalize the internal scope; playing out a disenchanted dream of reality. Roads, buildings, yards, construction sites, parking lots, fields, sky; all seem to drip with answers beyond their forms. They remain still, but hold the longing out with both hands; one step away from the void.The world has been caught, stripped to the bone; rendered poignant in sepiatone colored fever-(day)dreams (surely here, and to a fishier degree in von Trier's The Element Of Crime (1984), now proved to be the color of at least some part of heaven). Modernity has been deflated, time and space orchestrated, society has been shown limbless, history has retreated to the wastelands, and man is man as he has always been. Aoyama has pierced the skin; broken thru to the inner chambers. The surface has been dissolved and only the hopeful depths remain.

the first thing i heard about this movie was that it would be a 3.5 hours long black and white movie with a minimum of dialogues. that was all i needed to know to impatiently anticipate seeing Eureka. it took a while and it only showed in three cinema's here in belgium, in one cinema each month for they had only one copy of the film, so when i heard it played i found myself lucky to finally see it with a showing rate of once a day only five days/week. a bit surprised but then again could've guessed not a lot of people where in the (very)small theatre. as for most movies i anxiously await i held my breath, but this one captured me from the start. ok, better said: after the first scene is over you get involved with the three survivors of the bus-jacking, the driver and two kids - who never speak again from that day on and seem to live on their own (no one seems to know what ever happened to their parents... which is great, i love certain things that aren't explained in the movies,). but now i give away more than i like when writing about movies (this thing about the parents isn't even that important to the story, hence the give-away of this detail) *also, note that i saw this movie in september 2001 and never found it again to see or buy (if anyone has it and wants to get rid of it...)* the film is split up in three major parts. the first describes the fall and 'resurrection' of the driver, the second focusses on the children and how the three meet up again and try to bring their lives back into balance, the last part takes you on a final road trip through the country in a bus turned camper as a final solution type of thing. the last seconds hold a nice little surprise! (k, not a big o' deal - allthough it has this particular distinct meaning,wich i found quite amusing! -and will b lost for 99% of the viewers- the meaning that is) i know the duration was a turn of for a lot of people and i guess i can understand why most find Eureka boooring, but people like that never ever see these things in their whole perspective. if this movie were to've been made more up-tempo'd, it would've lost it's charm toootally. stories like these won't be told just that easily, it has to be absorbed in it's entirety, so one can feel every emotion intended, also gives you a bit time to think about things as you see them unfold instead of afterwords when you have to recollect the whole movie (which i did anyway but hey) this is a must-see-movie when being a moviejunk (especially the anti-hollywood-cinemaniacs) are u an emotional type? with eyes for beauty? see it.

A poverty of ideas on almost every level is what characterises this film. The stylishness of the cinematography and the very competent acting of Yakusho Koji cannot mask this fact over 3.5 hrs. Even those with an ardent interest in post-traumatic stress disorder will find it hard to bear.