Le labyrinthe des rêves

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.

Based on Kyusaku Yumeno's novel "Shojo jigoku satsujin rerei", Yume no ginga (Milkyway of dreams) is a masterpiece depicting young girl's dream, and thriller of serial murder.

The film is shot like the old movies from '50s Japan, but the faces of the actors are unmistakably new.

Tomiko who is a bus guide hears about the death of her friend Tsuyako who was engaged with her fellow bus driver Niitaka. She hears about a rumor about serial murderer who is also a bus driver and suspects Tsuyako might have been his victim. One day, Tsuyako's ex fiancé starts to work in her bus company. Tomiko begins to suspect Niitaka might have been responsible for Tsuyako's death.

Yumeno has a dreamy style to his novel. The movie reflects his style, and the translation is done superbly and seamlessly in this movie.

You have to see this movie to appreciate its subtle artistry. Great suspense and mystery set on a backdrop of ordinary day to day life of a young girl.

Highly recommended.

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.

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!

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.