Eureka review

Writer/director Shinji Aoyama's self-styled "prayer for modern man" is a slow-burning piece of mesmerising film-making.

Shot in dreamy sepia, Eureka examines the impact of a bus kidnapping in small-town Japan, as three survivors - - the driver Makoto (Koji Yakusho) and two teenage siblings, Kosue (Aoi Miyazaki) and Naoki (Masaru Miyazaki) - - struggle to cope. Two years later, the now-orphaned schoolchildren are still too traumatised to speak. Makoto proposes a bus tour in order to "start over again..."

The running time seems daunting, but this contemplative exploration of healing and loss combines scope and intimacy to impressive effect.