Vibrator

In a thin year for Japanese mainstream cinema, Hiroki's superb adaptation of Akasaka Mari's feminist novel stands high. Rei (stage actress Terashima Shinobu) is a self-hating middle-class professional with the usual eating disorders and a liquor habit. One night, out buying red wine, she falls in with the trucker Okabe Takatoshi (Omori Nao, probably the most in-demand actor in Japan since he played the title role in Ichi the Killer) and finds herself living out a road movie in the front seat of his eight-ton truck. Or is that a sex movie? Rei's consciousness -expressed through voice-overs, intertitles and aural memories -is the core of the film, and Okabe's very physical presence provides the stimulus that transforms it. He's 28, has dyed blond hair and a ring in his left nipple; he also has (he says) a glamorously criminal past and a wife, a daughter and a stalker. It's not long before they're exploring each other sexually, usually in the back of the cab, and Rei starts wondering how someone so rough can handle her so gently... Magnificently shot by Suzuki Kazuhiro and acted with absolute conviction by both stars, Vibrator finds the world in a grain of sand. (Tony Rayns)