At first sight, the title of Ryuichi HIROKI’s latest movie refers to sexual misery and loneliness. After all, it’s what a vibrator is about and we cannot forget that the helmer made his directing debut in 1982 in erotic films before receiving the Grand Prix in the video section of the Yubari Fantastic Film Festival for the 1993 film "Sadistic City".
Or maybe it refers to the cellphone that vibrates in the inner jacket of 30-year old Rei Hayakawa (played by Shinobu Terashima, Arts Festival prize for best new actress in 1996 and Yomiuri Actors award for Outstanding Actress in 1997) when she meets Okabe ( a truck driver played by Nao Omori, seen in Takashi Miike’s "Ichi the Killer" and Takeshi Kitano’s "Dolls") as if it announced a change in her life, a need to connect.
Or maybe it’s just the humming of Okabe’s truck, a comforting sound that physically relieves Rei of all her tensions, and of the voices that haunt her mind.
Most probably, it’s the three of them.
In this adaptation of a novel by AKASAKA Mari (Noma Literature Prize winner for best new writer in 2000 for “Muse”) Rei meets Okabe in a convenience store at night. Her mind is tortured by imaginary voices (symbolized by voice overs and intertitles) that cause her bulimia and anorexia and spoil her sleep. Immediately after their meeting, both realize that they are attracted to each other and she joins him into his truck. He accepts to take her on his trip and what started as a sex encounter with Okabe lying to protect himself turns into deep understanding and a therapy for Rei’s anxious mind. Almost the whole movie takes place in the truck which represents the journey of Rei to relief. This is definitively a journey to make.

Olivier Delesse