Hitomi Kuroki plays Shumi, a middle-aged divorced single mother who faces all kinds of hardships—moving to a smaller town, living in a lesser-than-expected apartment, switching to a smaller company, taking a lower position, and having to work at the same time One person is responsible for taking her daughter to kindergarten, and her divorced husband has to compete for custody of her daughter. She also hired a private detective to investigate her financial and mental state, proving that she had a medical history such as sleepwalking caused by her parents’ divorce when she was a child, and mental disorders caused by editing violent literature. Facing such a heavy burden, Shumei is not weak or discouraged. She is strong in the face of all difficulties and protects her daughter even at all costs.
If the story stops there, it's an ordinary social film, but when the surreal plot is added, it's a completely different flavor - the shabby apartment where the mother and daughter moved into dripping water from the ceiling, hair falling out of the water pipe Waiting for foreign objects, a small red schoolbag that was found on the rooftop but always lingering, the sound of children running upstairs but no one lived there, my daughter often talking to herself, playing hide-and-seek in kindergarten but inexplicably unconscious— —The shadow of a girl "Kumiko" kept flashing in Shumei's mind. It turned out to be the missing girl who used to live upstairs. Her mother didn't come to pick her up in time after school. She was wearing a yellow raincoat and a red schoolbag. Going home, but step by step towards the water tower on the rooftop...
As a result, multiple clues connected the director's intentions - Shumei's parents divorced, Shumei herself divorced, Kumiko's parents divorced, and the daughter of the divorced mother was not carefully protected, so tragedies occurred one after another. . After in-depth reflection, we found that we did not treat middle-aged women kindly, we remarried ourselves, we betrayed them, discriminated against them, and forced them to the fringes of society, and what did we get? "The hand that shakes the cradle shakes the world", what we get is retribution! Our children have lost their mothers and lost their love, and the world will forever be in darkness and terror. We have to atone for our evil deeds.
The photography and editing of this film are exquisite, smooth and natural, without any contrived feeling; the sound effects are tepid and in place, which not only creates horror, but also is full of human touch; Dreamland; especially the visit of a male lawyer in the middle of the film makes the film twists and turns, turning yang into yin, it seems to become a real detective film. And the plot suddenly took a sharp turn, making the audience emotionally ups and downs; the final climax was unexpected, a huge flood poured out, and the mother's touching scream was shocking: "Don't come! Don't come!" The performance of the mother and daughter actors It is seamless, especially the young daughter's tense expression. The performance of the mother picking her up late was almost perfect, blending suspicion, blame, love, and dependence on her mother in silent eyes: "I only need to be with my mother. It's good to be together." Just one line, a tight hug, is enough to unforgettable and make people cry. Not a single shot is sloppy, not a single word of nonsense, which shows the director's skill.
The title of the film is dark water, which is very meaningful. As the old saying goes, "the highest good is like water", but women are like water. There are Virgin Mary and Athena in the West, and Guanyin and Mother Earth in China. They are all enshrined as gods of perfection. Perhaps there are hidden guilt and gratitude for middle-aged women, and everyone's sense of belonging to mother's love. . If the source of our goodness, the clear spring of "mother's love", has also dried up and become turbid, where do we go to find truth, goodness, and beauty?
2005.11.13
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