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If you've got a free afternoon or evening in the next couple of weeks, I urge you to get up see Eureka. You'll need the whole afternoon or evening since the film is 220 minutes long, but it's well worth it.

The film, which is set in Japan, opens with the hijacking of a bus. A number of passengers are killed before the deranged hijacker is finally shot down. The only survivors are the bus driver and two middle-school-aged children, a brother and sister. The rest of the  movie follows their attempts to cope with what's happened.

Eureka is admittedly slow, with an emphasis on long takes and subtle interactions, but I found it to be genuinely absorbing. The bus driver, who's subsequently ostracized from his family and most of his friends, ends up living with the children, who happen to be living alone after the death of their father and disappearance of their mother. The three seem to be finding some sense of normalcy when the siblings' older cousin shows up. 

I won't describe anything else of the plot, since part of the movie's charm is how its story slowly develops. The real strength of Eureka, however,  might be its extraordinary photography (courtesy of the great Japanese cinematographer Masaki Tamra). Shot in Cinemascope in sepia-toned black-and-white, the film is simply gorgeous to watch. And unlike other Asian directors who have a consistent style, director Shinji Aoyama uses a variety of shooting techniques, from static close-ups to complicated tracking shots to the aforementioned long takes.

The most amazing thing about Eureka might be that it was released in the U.S. at all. The film's length and subject matter make it a far cry from blockbuster material. Tremendous credit must go the Shooting Gallery series for their courage in the face of market indicators. That sort of courage should be rewarded. 

J. Robert Parks 5/18/2001