THE WOMAN OF THE WATER/WATER WOMAN
Japan, 2002, 115 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Hidenori Sugimori.
The Water Woman is a mythic story told in Japanese style. Rather than a narrative, the film focuses on characters, their interactions, their symbolism. She is symbolised by water. He is symbolised by fire. The film is emotionally intense, not a film of psychology or narrative drama but more an exploration of themes and human relationships.
1. An art house film? Its linear narrative? The symbolic settings? The use of symbols? Magic realism? Flashbacks? A satisfying combination?
2. The linear story: Rio, people talking about her, the rain falling whenever she was present, the legends in the town? Seeing her at the baths? Her owning them? The trips that she made, into the forest, meeting the biker woman, later being told that she had changed her life, stopped her killing herself, being able to thank her after painting Mount Fuji? The encounter with the young man in the house, following him into the mountain, the sexual relationship in the cave? His coming back, her opening the baths again, his looking after the furnace? Their relationship? The truth about him? His encounter with the mother, his story about the mother - and his even thinking of killing her? Arsonist, memories of childhood, seeing himself as a boy with the matches, his setting the tyre alight, not setting the building alight? His feeling that he had to go on after the mother attacked him? His climbing the chimney? His being struck by lightning, destroyed by fire? The fire man? Rio's response to all of this, her normal life, her love for him, her love for the mother? Getting the rain to fall on the burning corpse?
3. The baths, their symbolism, the people going there, the customs in Japan, the symbolism of washing dirt away? Rio's comments on washing, bodies? The work in the baths, the collage of people bathing, the cleaning of the baths? Mount Fuji and its being painted on her mother's anniversary?
4. The mother, grotesque, mute, her walking the streets with her wagon? Coming to the baths, Rio as a daughter? The encounter with the young man, her being imagined in his story? His attacking her? Her attacking him? Her going on her way?
5. The painter, his painting Mount Fuji, his assistant?
6. The local police, the ordinary people? The relationship to Rio?
7. The symbolic sequences: especially Rio looking at the world upside down, Mount Fuji, the forest, the mythical places that she inhabited? The meeting of the little girl at the end looking at the world upside down - young Rio or Rio's daughter? The overall impact of this exploration of Japanese stories, the touch of mysticism? The final images of Heaven and the talk about God and Heaven?
