Labyrinth of Dreams (1997) User Reviews

Deeply poignant film, depressing but beautiful!

[samxxxul · 8/10 · 9 May 2020]

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.

A perfect succession of images about the mystery in love

[biketrialz · 8/10 · 9 February 2007]

One of the best psychological thrillers i've ever seen. Not only the slow, yet tensioned rhythm, but all the symbolic scenes make a continuous symphony out of this movie. There are many moments of complete silence that make you really "visually feel" the emotion. The editing helps arousing a great dynamic ambiance in the train scenes. The directing skills demonstrate once again the deepness in the Asian film school, the finesse in cinematographic language. I had some revelations watching this movie in what regards the way you make the beginning of a movie . The beginning (first 15 minutes) of the film is colossal. Must see for those who want to learn how to make tensioned films.

Masterpiece of intrigue

[ebiros2 · 6/10 · 15 July 2009]

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.

Awesome thriller with extreme feelings

[Synss · 10/10 · 26 May 2005]

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!

Dark Romance

[Falconeer · 9/10 · 17 October 2012]

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!

Like staring into the sun

[ReadingFilm · 9/10 · 21 January 2023]

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.

Pregnant

[tedg · 28 April 2008]

We live in a universe in which our fronts are three dimensional. We move into the world, moist, breathing, shaping moist breath to cause and shape things. We are worlds unto ourselves, feeding our lovers oysters with colored eyes engaged.

From behind we are flat. Things have occurred. We are no longer agents weaving worlds but effects of a hungry system. We are no longer worlds but bits of a machine who chases us, closing in on our excretions of different types. Our sexual organs are balanced between, subject to being swallowed by fate, by mechanics alien in every way, but yearning to be the stuff of agency, making, being.

Its at this fractal edge this film (and its companions by this filmmaker) places itself, determined to scintillate between being, causing, at the front and noir structure behind, flat. Only the Japanese can approach this precipice in this way because only they have this tradition of flatness in image. Kurosawa solved it by superimposing sliding planes. Ishi by sliding narratives, conflicting in direction: things happening, caused versus things that have happened seeking explanation. He also leverages the ghost story form that seems to go back a millennium.

I applaud his ambition, and viscerally thrill at the cinematic investment. Its where art comes from. All art fails... that's the risk. Its just a matter of whether the artist has the confidence in how HE moves, because we can only see his flat backside. Ishi has that confidence, which you can sort into structure, and thence into life. And then if you dare into encounter.

Its then that you determine whether it is deep, a love, something that changes or merely tastes. In my case, I have to report, dear reader, that I was not transformed by this. This is not a life-altering encounter as some are. But it is something, not nothing, to have a film designed to be fully entered from behind. It is not trivial to find something open. In this case, the watcher is a pretty young woman who presents that cultured coyness unique to Japan that reports (here by letters) her willingness, no, eagerness to succumb.

By entering, you breath, and that's enough.

If you want a report from behind: the film is a mystery story about a male bus driver who may be a serial killer and his next victim, a pretty bus conductor who has placed herself in that position to investigate. Nominally, it is a game, a labyrinth, that the two enter, enclosed, largely pre-determined but with some choices. She falls in love with him...

This is the stuff that Ruiz handles so deftly but scarcely so visually.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

visually stunning but lacking in depth

[LunarPoise · 5/10 · 29 June 2006]

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.