Eureka

In a town in northern Kyushu, a man hijacks a bus and kills its passengers. The only survivors are the driver and two young siblings, a girl and her older brother. In the aftermath, the survivors form a unique bond, united by the question of why they, of all people, were spared. Unable to return to their former lives, they set off together into the depths of the island, seeking to regain a sense of agency, shed their guilt and come to terms with their grief.

Eureka is a poignant meditation on memory, responsibility and the harrowing path back to normality – a cinematic epic, built out of silence, about how to go on living when the past refuses to be forgotten. Shinji Aoyama creates something more than a film about trauma: he offers an account of a process of spiritual healing. At the time of its release, Eureka was conceived almost as a kind of prayer; nearly three decades later, it still resonates as a meditative psalm about learning to live with trauma. Few filmmakers have been able to give this subject such a transcendental dimension. Once viewed as a spiritual compass for entering the new millennium, today Eureka stands above all as a mesmerising road movie about searching for the colours of life that faded with a sudden tragedy.

 

age rating: 12 and up
trigger warnings: violence, child abuse, self-harm and/or suicide, alcohol and/or drug use