Eureka

Drama

Koji Yakusho	Makoto Sawai
Aoi Miyazaki	Kozue Tamura
Masaru Miyazaki	Naoki Tamura
Yoichiro Saito	Akihiko
Sayuri Kokusho	Yumiko
Ken Mitsuishi	Shigeo
Gô Rijû	Busjack Man
Yutaka Matsushige	Matsuoka
Sansei Shiomi	Yoshiyuki Sawai
Kimie Shingyoji	Mother

Director	Shinji Aoyama
Writer	Shinji Aoyama

The film begins with two children, siblings Naoki (Masaru Miyazaki) and Kozue (Aoi Miyazaki), boarding a bus. Next, without preamble, we see the bus in a parking lot strewn with bodies. A madman has killed all but three passengers--Naoki, Kozue, and the driver, Makoto. The rest of the film tries to describe how the massacre has affected the survivors' psyches. Like a soldier returning from the horrors of war, Makoto (Koji Yakusho) cannot resume his normal life; he disappears for two years and returns to his village to find that life has moved on without him. Looking for a way to address his trauma, Makoto moves into the house of Naoki and Kozue, who are orphaned and live together in total silence. In this silence lies the intensity of the film, for the children are like staring ghosts and the objects around seem alive and haunted. In the style of the great Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu, Aoyama takes household items and instills in them a feeling of threat. Over the beautifully composed shots, the ambient sounds scream for a human voice to break the silence.