Ishii Sogo was a pioneer of independent, self-taught film-making in Japan. He achieved a breakthrough for himself and many other would-be directors when he co-directed a 35mm remake of one of his student Super-8 film for commercial release. His career, since then has been remarkable, encompassing everything from commercial features to experimental shorts and music videos. In the 1990s he has specialized in unusual and disturbing thrillers, bringing his distinctive ′psychodelic′ shooting and editing style to stories centered on sexual fears and desires. Labyrinth of Dreams, based on a novel by writer maudit Kyusaku yumeno, is the latest of these. Ishii updates the story to rural Japan in the monochrome 1950s. The virginal Tomiko is a bus conductor in a small country town who grows convinced that Niitaka, the handsome new driver of her bus, is the man who romanced and murdered her friend Tsuyako. She steels herself to work with this man, testing him at every opportunity ... and then falls in love with him. This labyrinth is a Freudian fable of the night, filled with moons, rain, dark tunnels and imminent collisions. As Tomiko matures from repressed adolescence into womanhood, the key question is not really whether Niitaka is a murderer or not bur rather whether it′s possible for a ′murder′ to be carried out with sincerity. (Tony Rayns)