Lumière, Edinburgh Rating ***  Special report: the Edinburgh
festival 2001  After Hirokazu Kore-eda's last film, Afterlife -
his deeply absorbing and instantly accessible meditation on how
we perceive heaven, eternal bliss and the possibility of
happiness in this life - western audiences expected a great deal
of this director.    1. Distance   2. Production year: 2001   3.
Countries: Japan, Rest of the world   4. Cert (UK): NC   5.
Runtime: 132 mins   6. Directors: Hirokazu Kore-eda   7. Cast:
Arata, Susumu Terajima, Tadanobu Asano, Yui Natsukawa, Yusuke
Iseya   8. More on this film  Here, perhaps inevitably, he has
slightly disappointed them. This is a diffuse film, and lacks
Afterlife's clinching motif. It is uncertain in both its tone
and its message - if, indeed, any such message exists, or even
needs to.  Distance is set six years after a mass suicide by
members of a Japanese sect. Various relatives of the
victims/perpetrators assemble in the group's woodland cabin
hideaway on the banks of a huge lake. T