It is well shot, some beautiful sections and good dialogue but it is rather slow and unpleasant, and the subtitles can be too fast. The couple are getting married but we learn that the husband is still very close to his mother who has had a long affair with his fiancee's father. Much of the action is in the past when the man is still a child and his father is dying. There is some confusion as to who is his real father. Even if it is rather complicated, although very well done, but there is also more than a suggestion of incest and in the end it is a rather long melodrama for really just four people and I found them unlikable.
4 Reviews
Another work of art from Yoshishige Yoshida
mevmijaumau26 November 2014
A Story Written with Water is a very significant film in Yoshishige Yoshida's career. It's the first of his six "anti-melodramas", the last one being Farewell to the Summer Light in 1968. These films, aside from offering kick-ass black and white photography, dealt with the themes of one's turbulent past, history, eroticism, psychoanalysis and basic human desires and passions.
This movie is a touching family drama about a young man torn between the love of his fiancée and his mother. The plot is intercut with various flashbacks, and sometimes the protagonist's dreams which successfully break the overall realistic tone of the film. After a turn of events, he becomes unsure whether or not his fiancée (now wife) is his own sister. This is not the only case of implied incest. His relations with his mother (played by Yoshida's wife Mariko Okada) complicates things further, and throughout the film it's implied that something is off between the two of them, even going as far to suggest a case of Oedipus' complex.
The title of the film comes from the fact that water plays an important part in the movie's structure. It ends on a lake (or some other huge body of water), the dream scene is set on a beach and the most important flashback, the bathhouse one, needs no explanation. Some scenes even suggest that water somehow personifies (motherly) love, such as the one where the protagonist feels ill and asks for a glass of water from his mother, or when the two of them bath together in the bathhouse.
Yoshida frames interior scenes in any way possible - basically any camera position goes. People are seen through multiple sets of doors and windows or through vertical bars, obscured by mesh and transparent curtains, seen through rear-view mirrors etc. The most prominent visual motif is the mother's white umbrella, which appears in almost every scene connected with her, down to the very final shot.
What can I say about this director... He's so unknown and under-appreciated that it makes me sad. The man is/was truly a genius.
This movie is a touching family drama about a young man torn between the love of his fiancée and his mother. The plot is intercut with various flashbacks, and sometimes the protagonist's dreams which successfully break the overall realistic tone of the film. After a turn of events, he becomes unsure whether or not his fiancée (now wife) is his own sister. This is not the only case of implied incest. His relations with his mother (played by Yoshida's wife Mariko Okada) complicates things further, and throughout the film it's implied that something is off between the two of them, even going as far to suggest a case of Oedipus' complex.
The title of the film comes from the fact that water plays an important part in the movie's structure. It ends on a lake (or some other huge body of water), the dream scene is set on a beach and the most important flashback, the bathhouse one, needs no explanation. Some scenes even suggest that water somehow personifies (motherly) love, such as the one where the protagonist feels ill and asks for a glass of water from his mother, or when the two of them bath together in the bathhouse.
Yoshida frames interior scenes in any way possible - basically any camera position goes. People are seen through multiple sets of doors and windows or through vertical bars, obscured by mesh and transparent curtains, seen through rear-view mirrors etc. The most prominent visual motif is the mother's white umbrella, which appears in almost every scene connected with her, down to the very final shot.
What can I say about this director... He's so unknown and under-appreciated that it makes me sad. The man is/was truly a genius.
Beautiful, Complex, Japanese New Wave Melodrama
Steven_Harrison22 August 2005
Warning: Spoilers
Very much a "new wave" melodrama, there are strong feminist and Oedipal overtones in this. The mother is played by the director's wife, Mariko Okado (who some may know from her roles in Ozu films). Written by Ishizaka Yojiro, a very popular Japanese author who became well known with the "new Japan" through his serial novel, "Blue Mountain Range" (which of his novels this film is based on, and whether it's available translated into English, I have little idea). The story is very simple, in that you're told that a mother and son have a strong, almost sexual, bond through moments present and past. The father of the past (who has died of Tuberculosis, revealed shockingly), the mother's current liaison, and the son's wife all re-enforce roles of sexual inadequacy with the two main characters (Mother, Shizuko, and son, Shizuo). Time is blended together, and the film ends up being an incredibly interesting melodrama with much of the (Japanese new wave staple) political put on backburner. A subplot involving the son's lack of sexual interest in his wife, and his mother's lack of sexual fulfillment in her lover (husband to be, I'm not sure) adds to the development of the incest tone. Highly recommended (seen without subtitles though, it's available in R2 Japan DVD, NTSC format, from Geneon).
Steven
Steven
One of the best avant garde movie from Japan
ebiros21 January 2012
The director of this movie, Yoshishige Yoshida (Sometimes pronounced Kijyu Yoshida) always had Avant Garde taste to his movies. He was one of the directors that were part of movement called Nuberu bagu ( from the French nouvelle vague) or Japanese New Wave. This can be seen in movie such as Amai Yoru No Hate (1961) starring Masahiko Tsugawa. So this movie was a perfect match for the director. The movie also stars his wife Mariko Okada as the mother of the two sons.
The original title Mizu de Kakareta Monogatari (Story written with water) is an appropriate title if you consider women as water. The story revolves around the relation between Shizuka (Mariko Okada) and Denzo (Isao Yamagata) who were having a long time affair even while Shizuka was still married to her husband Takao. This puts doubt on her son Shizuo about who his real father is. But one day Shizuo is recommended to marry Yumiko (Ruriko Asaoka) from his mother and Denzo. While having no enmity to his mother, Shizuo had despised Denzo for his strength and relation with his mother. After the marriage, Shizuo asks Denzo if he might be his son, and marriage with Yumiko would be a marriage between brother and a sister. Denzo denies the accusation, but he's not 100% sure, and distraught over the thought gets into car accident. Shizuo lost all faith has no more desire for Yumiko, and asks his mother to commit suicide with him.
Based on a novel by Yojiro Ishizaka, this movie is a superb depiction of human relationship and what long range effect illicit relationship can have. There are beautiful women in this world. Maybe too beautiful, and that beauty causes both men and women to lose their ways. This is such story. Yojiro Ishizaka has writing style like no other. He's one of the great novelist of the 20th century. No one can write love romance/ human drama like he can. This movie is no exception.
The movie features slew of beautiful women, that convinces you that resisting sexual advance from such beauty is almost impossibly difficult. Yet that beauty and all the power and wealth of Denzo couldn't bring happiness to the people around them. That tells us something.
Beautifully made movie, is one of the best director Kijyu Yoshida has made.
The original title Mizu de Kakareta Monogatari (Story written with water) is an appropriate title if you consider women as water. The story revolves around the relation between Shizuka (Mariko Okada) and Denzo (Isao Yamagata) who were having a long time affair even while Shizuka was still married to her husband Takao. This puts doubt on her son Shizuo about who his real father is. But one day Shizuo is recommended to marry Yumiko (Ruriko Asaoka) from his mother and Denzo. While having no enmity to his mother, Shizuo had despised Denzo for his strength and relation with his mother. After the marriage, Shizuo asks Denzo if he might be his son, and marriage with Yumiko would be a marriage between brother and a sister. Denzo denies the accusation, but he's not 100% sure, and distraught over the thought gets into car accident. Shizuo lost all faith has no more desire for Yumiko, and asks his mother to commit suicide with him.
Based on a novel by Yojiro Ishizaka, this movie is a superb depiction of human relationship and what long range effect illicit relationship can have. There are beautiful women in this world. Maybe too beautiful, and that beauty causes both men and women to lose their ways. This is such story. Yojiro Ishizaka has writing style like no other. He's one of the great novelist of the 20th century. No one can write love romance/ human drama like he can. This movie is no exception.
The movie features slew of beautiful women, that convinces you that resisting sexual advance from such beauty is almost impossibly difficult. Yet that beauty and all the power and wealth of Denzo couldn't bring happiness to the people around them. That tells us something.
Beautifully made movie, is one of the best director Kijyu Yoshida has made.
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