Tomiko falls in love with Niitaka, even though she also suspects him of being the Tokyo bus driver serial killer, who killed his female conductors after tiring of them.
Yume no ginga, 꿈의 은하, Drømmenes labyrint, Лабіринт снів, Le Labyrinthe des rêves, Yume no Ginga, Лабиринт снов, 梦幻银河, 꿈의 미로, Labirinto dos Sonhos, 夢幻銀河, Rüyalar Labirenti
Japan Japan 
One of the greatest visual essays about the sexual allure of danger.
In my boring life, a chance for adventure has finally arrived. I, of course, know what I am in for.
a movie that completely and unquestionably took my breath away from the moment it started—something I’ll never get back and something I don’t want back. lets get this immediately out of the way, if my bus driver looked anything like Tadanobu Asano I too, would fall madly in love with him; love at first sight.
Gakuryū Ishii is quickly becoming one of my favorite directors, every film of his I’ve seen has a unique adrenaline-driven style whether it’s full of chaotic visuals or dwells in atmospheric daymare gloom—Labyrinth of Dreams falling under the latter. Ishii steers directly toward the forbidden light,…
Wow, this is such a great example of just how many amazing films there are still out there to find. Labrtinth of Dreams is a top tier Japanese art house film from the 90s. It exemplifies the amazing film scene that was happening in Japan in the 90s, builds upon it, and manages to achieve something greater than it's piers.
It is a dark film both literally and figuratively. The film is in black and white but largely shrouded in darkness with some jarring moments of light that blinds the viewer like the sun. The story is a lucid dream with one traumatic event after another. It's about a woman named Tomiko and her struggles as a bus conductor. She…
Honestly I would also fall in love with a murderer to distract myself from my boring ass life.
Galaxies of sexual allure. Slow and deliberate. Distant fatal love. Demons sing love songs. Moths are ghosts. Spacy atmospheric score. The gorgeous coldness. A new bus driver arrives; a light the same as a train's shines behind. Heavily subdued performances, comprised of ice-cold stares. Icy ambiguity. The daylilies. I'm clean now. Wrestling with fate. Death moves like a train.
Allure of the unknown as a twisted cure for an agonizingly humdrum existence. Leaping into the arms of danger since it guarantees some respite from a lifeless life.
Stuck in a spiritless land amidst dull people and waking up every morning to work a job that is everything your dream did not make it out to be. The dullness is borderline lethal; you've followed the path of your dreams and it has gifted you with apathy.
That's when he comes into your life. A man harbouring evil within him, or so you think. Suspicion turns into fact by foregoing the need for concrete evidence; you judge him guilty before even looking him in the eyes. You choose him as your…
Silences wide as ranges interrupted by vertices of vocal emission; revelations of the heart sung by birds of desire. Rather dead than lonesome…
A floating wind casting spells on those below it and among the gently crepitating trees the rain begins to wash away the doubts that plague the desolate. Envy becomes yearning; remoteness becomes immersion; vengeful scorn becomes scorching love.
Just something in the air—you cannot place or name it. Something shouting out to you at the top of its charcoal lungs that this is the correct path to take. The risk is clear; the chances you must take are more than perilous, yet there isn’t a thing stopping you. Like waves washing rocks slowly bare along the shore, your…
Noooo don’t become a bus conductor your so sexy aha
This film is a complete change of pace from the Ishii films I had grown accustomed to. The three films I had seen previously featured infectious frenzied energy, rollicking romps, and colorful characters. Labyrinth of Dreams could not be more different. It is surreal, subdued, and sexy. All of the imagery and interactions are absorbing, but there is always an overwhelming sense that darkness looms beneath the surface.
Tomiko is mesmerized by Niitaka despite his minacious aura. She suspects him of being a serial killer, but she still falls under his spell. The film is essentially an atmospheric mood-piece. Ishii carefully crafts tension and explores the alluring aspects of danger through subtle sound design and elegant yet uncomfortable exchanges between…
The darkness beckons. Past a clearing shrouded in shadow is the blackness of the forest where no sun can encroach, calling out to us softly through the swaying trees; in the tunnel that takes us from one point of day to another, like the woods, hides the unknown, potential for peril, point of intrigue. In the midst of a quotidian banality—aching ennui outweighed only by our longing for escape—one may choose to undercut security, facing off with fate in a fight that often has no winners, and yet we commit anyway, walking without reservation into the great unknown—the tenebrous ethereal, filled with crying winds and mysterious silences, not knowing what the other side of that clearing holds, or perhaps knowing, and knowing it could be fatal, but proceeding anyway. Is God at the wheel, or are we? Out of even the pitchest of blacks there can be borne a new light.
Some of the most effective uses of silence I've seen in any movie.
Exploring the appeal in going against your better judgement just so you can have some autonomy over your decisions, where danger and mystery become desirable because tedium is the only alternative. Tomiko seems to know that her peculiar relationship with the enigmatic Niitaka is doomed to fail from the outset, but she's willing to accept that and face the potential darkness just to experience something beyond the monotonous cycle her life has become. Both Rena Komine and Tadanobu Asano (who seems to be great in everything) provide impressive performances given the difficult emotions they have to capture through such subtle characters.
Similarly to the rest of Ishii's 90s output, this is a deeply introspective and ominous mood piece; akin to…
