Eureka (Film)

EUREKA
Dir: Shinji Aoyama
Japan, 2000
09/05/09

Shinji Aoyama’s Eureka (Yurika) opens with two children (Aoi Miyazaki as the young Kozue, and her real life brother Masaru Miyazaki as her fictional older brother Naoki) getting a bus to school which is then high jacked and after a fatal shootout with police only they, and the bus driver Makoto (Koji Yakusho), remain alive albeit heavily traumatised. Two years later Makoto returns home from drifting around Japan to try and restart his life but finds he is still not over the incident, much to the indifference of his family, and there’s a spate of killings of which he is the prime suspect. When he discovers that the two children from the bus are living alone because their mother has left and their father has died, he moves himself in and along with the children’s cousin, Akihiko (Yoichiro Saito), they proceed to try and help each other overcome the mental wounds they are suffering from.

Filmed in black and white (which sometimes looks sepia, although that may be the DVD transfer), it offers itself as an elegy to the human soul searching to discover itself. Aoyama wants to show us every detail of the process, from devastation to the healing that his three main characters go through, hence a running time of three-and-a-half hours which never seems contrived or forced. It is almost a fairytale in terms of the dark horrors that fairytale’s used to embody being as they were metaphors for the cruelties of real life. The main trauma the leads are suffering from may be the unsettling bus high jacking but that is not the end of it; instead it seems that was just an opening of the floodgates, and the devastating events seem to pile up and becomes an overwhelming and seemingly endless tidal wave for all the characters as the children loose their family, and Makoto is suspected of murder by his.

The children are abandoned by their mother, which is never explained but hinted that it may be an inability to deal with the children’s state of mind as they no longer speak. After their father dies they are left to fend alone. They stop going to school and lay about the house all day living off the insurance cheques that come through the post. They are aimless and almost lifeless as if stricken by some debilitating disease. It’s something that’s also infected Makoto and when he comes back from his wanderings he is given a chilly reception from his family. Unable to explain himself he finds his kin confused, the monotony of their life meaning they are lobotomised to such mental suffering as Makoto is undergoing. He gets his old job back with his childhood friend but it always feels as if he is simply passing the time and his damaged soul needs to be somewhere else, and so eventually they all come together.

Aoyama’s major social comment is the role of the family in modern Japanese society. None of the main character’s receive any form of emotional gratification from theirs, only exacerbation and suspicion. Makoto’s family may accept him back but it seems as if it is more out of rigid duty then out of affection, which is maybe Aoyama‘s main point; the family is emotionally obsolete and only exists out of mutual financial/housing needs and only survives because of being an ingrained social facility that people aren‘t developed enough to let go off. It‘s a bleak point of view but Aoyama’s philosophy is developed enough for him to offer an alternative; sometimes it is better if people choose their own family, as then they can choose based on feelings and shared experience instead of having ties forced upon them. It is Makoto’s childhood friend who is the only one that seems to unquestionably welcome him back, and it is only Makoto who can speak to the now mute children as his shared experience means he knows how to communicate without using words, instead using a series of knocks that has no intention of conversation but simply the knowledge that a loved one is there. He develops the technique whilst in prison, exchanging knocks through a wall with someone who has no doubt undergone a similar traumatising experience. This confounds Akihiko, the children’s cousin who has come to stay with them for the summer as a spy for the children’s aunt and uncle who want the children to come live with them so that they can have the insurance money. Akihiko though is on the side of the children and undermines his parents. Although he struggles to communicate with them the kids begrudgingly accept him into the fold as he too has suffered a life and death situation, though the circumstances are dissimilar.

It is also the family who immediately cast suspicion upon Makoto for the murders, as they coincide with his return to the town. He befriends a woman from work who has had an equally cold upbringing and they begin to bond as Makoto walks her home each night, but after she is murdered he comes to the attention of a local cop who happened to be at the bus high jacking. He tells Makoto that he knew from the start that the events would turn him into a killer but Makoto protests his innocence.

Aoyama is implying throughout the film that the traumatic events the characters went through unleashed innate desires to kill, maybe for a better understanding of their experiences on the bus, and this is one of the things his characters most overcome, but also that outsiders don‘t understand. It is a theme that is presented well for the first part of the film but once the characters are on the road and the strands start pulling together, it gets a bit lost as Aoyama seems unsure of how to presents the heart of the matter and instead has his characters state specifically their states of minds when previously they were presented through mise-en-scene and poetic images, and it seems forced and unsophisticated whilst the rest of the film is intelligent and paced. Yet what Aoyama is trying to say is no less diminished, it is simply the crescendo that is scuffed slightly and then we are back to the slow elegiac movement we had previously. The blame that the three characters feel is better presented, with Makoto always apologising, mostly needlessly, and the children making mock graves for the victims of the high jacking, and their lethargy seeming to be the physical effect of the weight of self-imposed guilt.

For the last part of the film, it is a road movie as the characters leave their fixed address to find themselves on the road. It ties back to Makoto’s childhood. He’s talking with his friend abut how they used to dream about being bus drivers and that it wasn’t as good as he had thought it would be because you just drive the same route, but now he is free to go whichever way he wants and wherever the healing process takes them all.

It is a film that is carefully photographed, the camera seeming to float along with the characters soul, so more often then not it remains still. It is a film that tries to find tranquil beauty in the emptiness of the lives it explores. It helps that the town is situated amongst picaresque fields and forests, the children’s house in particular set back from everywhere else, a large house on top of a hill, much like the evil characters from a fairytale and like those evil characters these children are misunderstood and shunned.

All the performances are superb, especially that of Koji Yakusho as Makoto, one scene in particular where he meets his wife to accept a divorce packing a strong emotional punch. Aoi Miyazaki as Kozue also stands out, managing to seem damaged yet more emotionally expressive then her brother, and it is her who bonds the most with Makoto, though the mental relationship the two young siblings share is well expressed. The rest of the cast are equally excellent, doing fine performances without so much as a proper frontal shot, never mind a close-up.

Aoyama also edited and co-composed the music. The main theme is melancholy jazz, played slowly and without any main tune that suit’s the characters inner turmoil perfectly, but seems out of place on the revelation of the ending, which ends with a breathtaking aerial shot. The rest of the music, usually heard on the radio (there isn’t much place for technology in the film), is usually a quiet cacophony of noise and feedback which is equally expressive.

It is a magnificent piece of art that isn’t undermined by it’s few less sophisticated scenes and plot questions (no social services for the children?). Aoyama deserves full credit for attempting, and to an extent succeeding at exploring such a difficult subject, and it falls on the right side of pretension. It is justifiably slow, to the films betterment, yet can still be overwhelming and requires contemplation as it offers half-answers but no real conclusions. Aoyama uses the editing and cinematography to his advantage to create a respectful dissection of human despair and emptiness, as well as being blessed with a great cast. It may have several flaws but is still a masterful piece of film-making.