Le labyrinthe des rêves

The Labyrinth of Dreams is a very unusual film and a new phase in Sogo Ishii's work, Inspired by a short story by Yumen Kyusaku , the experimental psychological-romantic/mystery as the title suggests, lulls you into a state similar to a paralyzing dream.

'In Labyrinth of Dreams" we are dealing with a story going around during pre-war Japan, a serial killer who seems to be rampant on the bus lines, murdering fellow female bus conductors when given the chance. The serial killer has already killed other girlfriends, including a friend of Tomiko will be his new business partner and sharing his routes and working as a ticket collector in the bus. When a Tomiko receives a letter from Tsuyako, to avenge her friend, she agrees to team up with him, but soon falls in love too. What if she had imagined everything?

Sogo Ishii presents characteristics quite the opposite of this genre, with long still shots, without music, in which the characters are silent or only exchange a few words using traditional narrative means in a completely unconventional way, making even the most banal dialogues and Tomiko's written confessions sound like pure poetry. His earlier rebellious punk rock films, like Crazy Thunder Road (1980), Burst City (1982), or Electric Dragon 80000 V (2001), cannot be described in this manner, but his Labyrinth of Dreams (1997) very much can be.

This rare title from art house director Gakuryu Ishii, concerning a beautiful young girl who becomes obsessed with the handsome stranger that might have murdered her friend, is a dizzying spectacle of shadows and beauty. When Tomiko reads a letter from her friend, claiming her co-worker and lover might possibly be a serial killer, she is horrified..until she sees a photo of the man, and is at once smitten. Niitaka is handsome and brooding, and when Tomiko takes over her friends job as bus conductor, she is soon working side by side with the killer. and although she tells herself she is there to avenge her friends death, she is quickly lured into a strange, platonic love affair with Niitaka.

Every frame of this film is beautiful to behold. Shot in stunning black and white, to mimic the Japanese films of the 1950's, complete with the fashions of those days, it draws the viewer into it's fantasy, dream-like World. We don't know until the end, if Niitaka is truly a murderer, and the tension builds nicely. Tomiko is so delicate and innocent, that we want her to find a happy ending. "Labyrinth of Dreams" brings us into this bizarre relationship nicely, all the way until the surprising conclusion. Apparently this title is extremely rare, but it is worth tracking down; it is something very special. Recommended to those with a genuine love of cinema and the art of film making, "Labyrinth of Dreams" is a true testament to what can be created with little money, and sheer talent and vision of a passionate film maker. This is a poetic and elegant production, containing no violence or sex; but rather innocent mystery, with a tragic romantic core. Highest recommendation!

In the Japanese countryside, young girls dream of going to the city find a little job like conductress because of the pretty uniform. But conductress is not so much fun after all. Then they dream about Love... And get lost in a labyrinth of dreams.

Seems a simple plot but wait...

That is one of the few psychological thrillers where you keep wondering until the very end if what you think will happen is really going to happen.

Plus great acting (esp. Tadanobu Asano), plus excellent cinematography, black and white and music just add something to the overall mood.

Highly recommended!

This is a film that is gorgeous to look at and will keep you watching till the end. But it is ultimately style over content; the cinematography is everything, as well as the staging to showcase the performances by the principals. The gaping hole in this film is characterisation. Neither of the principals seem to possess a life before or after the events we see on screen. Their bouts of staring at each other become faintly ridiculous after a while, even by Japanese standards. The film exhibits symptoms of the malaise afflicting J-cinema as a whole - great directing, sublime photography, and a script that seems to have been written on the train on the way to the studio.

It is another end of the curve of the erratic schizoid cinema, with this and August in the Water, Ishii seems like an impressionistic, poetic schizoid on powerful downers. Point is that most with such a strong perspective will want to flaunt it instead.

I am amazed how he can distill these ideas into a hyper reality, through minimalism. Then the big, stylized moments that do happen, are earth-shattering because they are emerging from a subdued canvas. It never feels like a bus, it feels like a dream bus. It never feels like a movie. Nothing happens in these but the time moves in odd ways that impact the psyche. This one comes down to her performance, those looks she makes just explode off the screen. I don't know how Ishii did these, it is hard to trace his thoughts.

It is exciting as someone who came up with western films to discover there are auteurs every bit as good, even better than a lot of our golden ones, it is like staring into a parallel reality.