A Story Written with Water [1965]

A Story Written with Water, though his seventh feature, was a major turning point in Yoshida’s career as it was the first after he parted ways with Shochiko Studios. With the new found independence from studio interference, he embarked on a spree of dark, edgy, layered, psychologically dense, thematically rich and stylistically dazzling “anti-melodramas”, all starring his ethereal muse Mariko Okada, with this complex mother-son tale. Shizou (Yasunori Irikawa) is a shy, young man with a well-paying job and engaged to the pretty, vivacious Yumiko (Ruriko Asaoka). However, things aren’t anywhere as hunky-dory as they seem. He has a strange and unhealthy attachment to his beautiful, luscious mother Shizuka (Okada), disturbingly bordering on Oedipal Complex, which marks his thoughts and his nature – his prudishness, insecurity, streak of jealousy and aloofness. And things get further complicated when she renews her relationship with Yumiko’s gregarious father (Isao Yamagata) with whom she had a torrid affair long back. Two motifs played key roles; one visual – with a series of exquisitely structured flashbacks, featuring, among others, Shizou’s lingering memories of regularly bathing together with his mother when he was a kid, and the other psychological – his dilemma that his fiancée’s dad might very well be his biological father as well. The expressionistic B/W photography and disorienting camerawork combined to provide a disconcerting peek into the protagonist’s troubled psyche, his inescapable memories, his repressed urges, and his deep-set guilt on account of his tempestuous relationship with his mother. All the 4 actors, and especially Irikawa and Okada, provided compelling turns.

Director: Yoshishige Yoshida
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama
Language: Japanese
Country: Japan