Dir: Ryuichi Hiroki. Japan. 2003. 95 mins.

Ryuichi Hiroki’s Vibrator sounds, from its plot summary, like a throwback to the feminist dramas of a generation ago - troubled thirtysomething woman rediscovers love and life on the road. Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore - she went to Japan. Based on an award-winning novel by Mari Akasaka, Vibrator resists such easy categorisation, however. Instead of following a formulaic arc to a fadeout clinch with Mr. Right, the film ends with the heroine’s demons still alive, if for the moment tamed. At the same time, it is not another solemn indie downer, but throbs with an infectious energy, erupts with a raw emotional force. It is an ode to the open road, leaps of faith, the transforming power of love.

While fitting the description of a quintessential women’s movie, film moves beyond genre cliches to the sort of risk-taking, boundary-pushing, category-defying drama that critics adore. Though the film is pitched at young women, strong reviews and expected haul of awards (including Shinobu Terajima’s Best Actress prize at the 2003 Tokyo Film Festival) might attract a broader audience locally. Also, tabloid reportage on Terajima’s battles with her famous actress mother - yakuza movie diva Sumiko Fuji - over role choices is stirring interest among fans who seldom see the inside of an art house.

A freelance writer, Rei (Shinobu Terajima), has a chance encounter with a spiky-haired truck driver named Okabe (Nao Omori) and decides, as one of the intertitles expressing her thoughts explains, that she wants to ‘eat him.’ She ends up in the cab of his truck, heading off to who knows where. Okabe, a self-confident type with a smooth line of patter, quickly eases her over her initial embarrassment. The sex that follows is fumbling, passionate and seals a bond between them. Rei begins to open up, telling Okabe of her past and her problems (she reveals that she is bulimic, but not that she has auditory hallucinations), while eagerly listening to his boastful stories and absorbing the arcane lore of his world.

But she is also terrified of losing her old self. When she feels it slipping away, she finds herself staring, terrified, into a void. On a gas station pavement, Rei retches her fear, rage and humiliation - but Okabe lifts her up, cleanses her. There is another side, we see, to this cool operator. He is on the verge of telling his own truths.

This may sound like a fantasy of love conquering all, but Okabe is not a wish fulfilment figure, just as Rei is not a stereotype of woman-as-victim. They don’t meet cute; they meet lonely and hungry. Their talk and thoughts, scripted by Haruhiko Arai, may mimic the randomness of reality, but express, with a poetic economy, what they are and what they are becoming. They emerge from their ride together like swimmers who have reached a distant shore after abandoning everything - including their lies. There is an exhausted purity about them that is beautiful, but unfiltered through the usual gauze.

As Rei, stage veteran Shinobu Terajima gives an all-stops-out performance so far above what commonly passes acting in Japanese films that it exists on a plane of its own. The Japanese Academy should itself save time and trouble and send her its Best Actress trophy now.

Not that her portrayal of a woman on the edge of madness, despair and finally love is a diva turn. Terajima plays with, not off, co-star Nao Omori’s preening, self-promoting but ultimately understanding, truck driver. Her interpretation also fits well with director Hiroki’s concept of the film, which is more allusive, complex and realistic than that of the typical Japanese women’s picture, with its tear-wringing exposition and glowingly bathetic climax.

Also though quite attractive in person, Terajima looks almost self-sacrificially like an average woman, flannel-shirted, early-thirties Japanese division. Her performance, however, makes Vibrator an extraordinary experience - and proclaims the arrival of a major new acting talent in Japanese films.

Production co:Studio Three
Int’l sales/Japanese dist:Golden View
Executive producer:Kisei Takahashi
Producers:Akira Morishige, Takeshi Aoshima
Screenplay:Haruhiko Arai
Cinematographer:Kazuhiro Suzuki
Production design:China Hayashi
Music:Hikaru Ishikawa
Main cast:Shinobu Terajima, Nao Omori, Tomoro Taguchi