time, space, the hero, the heroine, passing through a nameless space, ‘traffic’ from this side to the other side, from the other side to this side. however, precisely speaking, there is neither that side nor this side in film…it is a fantasy, an illusion. it is not as if there is some different time-space unfolding on this side that is different from that side. what is waiting on the other side is the repeition of this side…this repeition is precisely the tunnel, whose architecture lacks a distinction between exit and entrance, front and rear, that is simultaneously inside and outside…all the tunnel does…is to bring ‘traffic,’ the commuting back and forth between fantasy and reality, to cinema…tunnels are movies…film itself is traffic.
—aoyama shinji, on Leos Carax, Pola X, and tunnels, in ‘the geography of cinema’