A Story Written With Water (Yoshishige Yoshida, 1965)

[aguijon]

Título: A Story Written With Water Título V.O: Mizu de kakareta monogatari Director: Yoshishige Yoshida Año/País: 1965 / Japón Duración: 120 minutos Género: Drama Reparto: Mariko Okada, Ruriko Asaoka, Yasunori Irikawa, Isao Yamagata Enlaces: Subs Ficha de: aguijon

[aguijon]

Synopsis
Shizuo Matsutani, a bank clerk, is engaged to Yumika, daughter of a rich shopowner, Denzô Hashimoto. But when he discovers that his mother, the beautiful Shizuka, is having an affair with said, he delays his wedding because of it. He has even begun to despise Denzô, who he thinks wants to destroy the relationship he has with his mother...

Short Analysis
The heroine of this film, Shizuka, like Shinko in "Akitsu Springs" (both are played by Okada Mariko), is driven to suicide by the emptiness of her existence, primarily the emptiness of her erotic existence. The eroticism of "A Story Written with Water" is more profound than in the earlier film, and more complex, tied as it is to incest.
The film focuses on Shizuka's relationship to her son, Shizuo. Shizuka, a widow, is the mistress of Hashimoto Oenzo, a well-to-do banker, while Shizuo is married to his daughter, Yumiko. Shizuka's relationship to Denzo provides her with no sexual satisfaction, while Shizuo's relations with Yumiko are similarly unsatisfactory. Mother and son are seen to share the most profound erotic compulsion toward each other, which manifests itself first in a series of flashbacks. Shizuo remembers bathing with his mother; playing by a stream with friends when his mother calls him from a bridge; following his mother to the small house where she carries on her liaison with Denzo (thus telling us that this affair began before his father's death from tuberculosis); his parents kissing in his father's hospital bed. Shizuka remembers many of these scenes as well, in addition to her memory of her husband's final moments; He lay in bed as she removed her clothes give him one final kiss before he died . The erotic compulsion felt by mother and son climaxes when Shizuo goes into his mother's bedroom carrying a bottle of sleeping pills and talks to her of shinju, lovers' suicide. He lays his head on her breast; she throws her head back in a swoon of ecstasy, the camera rocking back and forth like a pendulum. A fade to black hides the next activity (including the possibility of incest and then double suicide). The next morning we see that mother and son did not commit suicide as Shizuka and Denzo take a drive to the country in his car. The car is discovered later, crashed into a tree, Denzo dead at the wheel. Shizuka has drowned in the lake, her shoes and umbrella floating on the surface of the water. Shizuo, meanwhile, following the (implied) incest with his mother, has drawn closer to Yumiko. The film's final shot shows Shizuo clinging tight to Yumiko as they search for Shizuka's body.
The intense aura of eroticism in the film stems not only from the motif of incest, but from the motif of water. As Ian Buruma notes, "Sensual experience in Japan is often associated with water, the most maternal of symbols." (Buruma also notes that love scenes are called "nureba", "wet scenes.") This is a recurring symbol in many films and erotic stories in Japan, used especially often by Yoshida . Shinko's suicide in "Akitsu Springs" takes place by a stream while Shizuka , in this film, drowns herself in a lake. Shizuo's memory of bathing with his mother in a large pool is a recurring image, finalized when his father looks into a mirror and suddenly coughs up blood. (The Oedipal overtones are perhaps too precise to ignore.)
The erotic aura is offset by Yoshida's film style which dearly shows the influence of Antonioni, especially his classic trilogy of alienation, "L' Avventura" (1960), "La Notte" (1961 ), and "L'Eclisse" (1962). Black-and-white cinematography emphasizes the starkness of the interior settings, fragmented camera angles and camera movements unmotivated by character point of view objectively reveal the emotional slerility and al ienation of the characters, and elliptical narration, combined with a complex chronology and a surrealistic dream sequence, deemphasize plot and causality. A Story Written with Water is thus a melodrama the way "L'Eclisse" is a melodrama; the basic elements are sifted through an overtly modernist sensibility.
"A Story Written with Water" was Yoshida's first film away from Shochiku studios as a contract director. Following this film, he made five more melodramas starring his wife, all of which explore the relationship between erotic love and marriage..
From: Desser, David: Eros plus Massacre - An Introduction to Japanese New Wave Cinema, Indiana University Press 1988. 144-45

Extras
* Introduction by Yoshishige (Kijû) Yoshida
* Theatrical Trailer

Uploader's Comment
Fresh from under the Christmas tree, the first DVD of Carlotta's second Kiju Yoshida Box ("Contre le Mélodrame"). "A Story Written With Water" is the first of Yoshida's independently produced films, and it really shows, one can already anticipate his later masterpieces like "Heroic Purgatory" or "Eros+Massacre".
Unfortunately French subtitles only, but maybe I'll start working on it when I have finished translating another Yoshida film...
Don't be confused because of the low bitrate, I planned the rip to have 1175kbit/s, but it seems that it compressed pretty well, so it only turned out to be about half of that.

[Reader]

Muchas gracias aguijon

[scarecrown]

Vaya, otra más. Me estoy preparando un autociclo , le iremos dando tiempo a mizoguchi Muchas gracias, aguijon.

[mizoguchi]

Genial aguijon   , me voy al foro de pedirse subtítulos ya mismo.

[garitero]

gracias colega

[hoboken71]

Muchas Gracias aguijon 

[Chrysalis]

¡Muchas gracias, aguijon!

[pantera27]

   Muchisimas gracias aguijon pinta expectacular expectacular este film!!!!! 

[Silien]

Gracias aguijon. A mi las características técnicas de este ripeo me parecen un insulto a Yoshida jeje . No he podido comprimirla aún porque estaba con Uniform, pero seguramente haga esta noche un primer intento, quizás ya válido. En todo caso, el mío seguramente será el doble de tamaño (qué menos...). Si alguno se quiere esperar pues perfecto .

[Chrysalis]

Donde haya un ripeo Allzine que se quite cualquier otro

Paro esta y espero tu ripeo.

[Silien]

Nada, vista la prueba que he hecho, 700 megas no es un tamaño absurdo (si nos fijamos, o pasó de todo o incluso le ha hecho un pequeño underflow... vamos, el tamaño se le ha quedado por debajo de lo que seguramente quería). El caso es que la película no parece necesitar más, de modo que no la ripearé. Esta versión va bien, visto lo visto .

[pochutla]

Gracias aguijon

[mizoguchi]

Enviados, a ver si alguien puede comprobar si se ajustan al ripeo.

[racso]

Para abajo. Muchas gracias.