DISTANCE

Japan, 2001, 132 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Kore- Eda Hirokazu.

Distance is from the director who made the striking film Afterlife, where a number of characters sit in a waiting room for Heaven and are asked to choose a significant moment of their life to take with them into eternity. Themes of death and eternity are strong in this film. However, it is treated in a very leisurely way, a long time building up the first half of the film where four characters (presented in their everyday life in Japan, in the workplace, at school, at home, in the street, with dates) is played out. The four then travel together to the scene of the poisoning of the water supply of Tokyo where over 100 people died and 8000 became ill. It transpires that a relative of each of these characters was responsible for the massacre. The relatives all died when the massacre took place.

Their car is stolen - and they meet a young man whom they recognise as having been part of the cult. He takes them to one of their houses and throughout the night he explains what the situation was like, how he was part of the cult but changed his mind at the time of the killings. He is able to enlighten each of the characters about their relationship with their sister/husband/other relation. The film is also punctuated by memories of each of the characters interacting with their relative. The aim of the director is to explore the aftermath of such massacres as the Ohm massacre with the gas in the Tokyo Underground. Characters are presented, it is not an exploration of right or wrong; it is an exploration of what might have been.