Synopsis
Struggling with his true emotions, dreams, memories of the past and the reality Shizuo is about to marry, but is torn between his wife-to-be and the love to his mother.
A Story Written with Water
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Alternative Titles
A Story Written on Water, Mizu de Kakareta Monogatari, История, написанная водой, Historie napsaná vodou, Histoire écrite sur l'eau, 물로 쓴 이야기, 水书物语
Genre
Releases by Date
Theatrical limited
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Russian Federation
Theatrical
23 Nov 1965
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Japan
Releases by Country
Japan
23 Nov 1965
- Theatrical
Russian Federation
01 Nov 2016
- Theatrical limited Retrospective of Yoshishige Yoshida (Moscow)
Popular reviews
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Stripped to its barest of narratives, Kiju Yoshida’s beautifully constructed film is an exploration of a marriage floundering in the wake of familial pain. Yet Yoshida cleverly layers thematic density atop these bones to offer up a deeply complex look at the struggles of women in the highly patriarchal culture of postwar Japan and the troubling place sexual desire and obsession takes within such an outwardly at least conservative society.
Shizuo (Yasunori Irikawa) is engaged to the beautiful Yumiko (Ruriko Asaoka), the daughter of a powerful local businessman (Isao Yamagata). Yet as their nuptials approach, Shizuo finds himself caught in the memories of his own sexual past, something he can’t separate from his problematic childhood with his mother, the stunning…
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A film about man's obsession with his mom and his deep-rooted desire of wanting to bang her and also his hesitation of sleeping with his wife because she could be his sister.
A pretty complex and heavy work from Yoshida. A film tackling obsession, desire, familial bonds and how childhood experiences could go on to shape one's adult life, as well as the societal fixation on woman's image, her sexual desire and freedom. There's lot going on here, the timeline hopping to highlight the key events , the emotional depth of its characters. Mariko Okada is terrific and is consistently compelling. Visually once again truly stunning from Yoshida, his framing is absolutely impeccable. Really liked how grim it feels from…
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A mature study of sexual imperatives, familial relationships and how the experiences one absorbs as a child shape the resultant adult.
For a young son, it’s almost impossible to imagine that a mother might have an inner life, and sensual desires and needs. And so a secret held by one’s mother might seem like a betrayal to her son; why would she choose to leave one’s side on occasion and not say where’s she’s going, for instance?
For a lad who loves his mother, such secrets breed suspicion. After all, she carried him for nine months, providing him with safety and succour, an umbilical cord connecting them. But to whom did the cord belong? Regardless, the moment it’s cut is the moment the fear of rejection becomes reality to a newborn child.
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Another tour de force in cinematography, framing/compositions and style from Yoshida.
This was the first Indy film that Yoshida made, so this was interesting seeing this as the first steps, building blocks to the later stylistic wizardry Yoshida would conjure.
The film, which skips a little in time is about a man trying to comes to terms with his mother's identity as a woman and her own sexual behavior. The issue is that her chosen lover of the last 20/30 years, is also the father of the son's wife. So yes this is highly oedpial and kinda does flirt a little with the incest taboo. This is also an astounding and heavy piece of work.
This is a nice double…
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One of the leading lights of the Japanese New Wave, Kiju Yoshida (Eros + Massacre) broke with studio filmmaking for A Story Written With Water, his first independent production and the start of his signature style. Telling the story of a man torn between his fiancee and the familial bond of his mother, Yoshida creates a dazzling narrative that uses flashbacks to tell its story of obsession and desire. With the luminous Mariko Okada as the mother, the celebrated star of such masterpieces as Floating Clouds and Late Autumn, she would become Yoshida’s muse across a series of the director’s ‘anti-melodramas’. Yoshida's singular visual flair and revolutionary exploration of film codes place him as one of the finest Japanese filmmakers…
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Presented in collaboration with Film at Lincoln Center—Imported 35mm Print. Bearing a title inspired by John Keats’ epitaph and taken from the Yōjirō Ishizaka novel it adapts, Yoshida’s first independent film is a startling affair, depicting the unbreakable love of mother and child. On the eve of his marriage, young Shizuo finds himself torn between his fiancée and the single mother who raised him. Having led a sacrificial life, laying aside personal happiness for her beloved son, Shizuo’s radiant mother (Mariko Okada) suffers silently, as the entanglement of unspoken dreams and desires floods in. Led by its striking visual language that frames Okada’s otherworldly beauty in veiled compositions, Yoshida’s abstracted josei eiga speaks to the pains of womanhood and the relinquishment of umbilical bonds—an exploration of the forgotten lives of women lived under the phantom of Japan’s imperial patriarchy.
Screening on Friday, December 8th as part of The Radical Cinema of Kijū Yoshida
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For about ten years, Yoshishige Yoshida only directed the best-looking movies ever made. His first independent film after leaving Shochiku is similar to the other stripped-down erotic melodramas he and his lead actress/wife Mariko Okada made in the late 60s before the amazing four film run of Eros + Massacre, Heroic Purgatory, Confessions Among Actresses, and Coup d'Etat and diving into early semi-retirement. A Story Written on Water started the independent period already finding those deep shadows and gauzy lights that suck me straight in to all Yoshishige's black & white movies. It is like a lot of his movies about women at the mercy of men's projections of them and womanhood in general. Mariko Okada plays the same character across…
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Dans ce film de Yoshida le traitement de l’inceste apparaît comme circulaire, ou du moins non linéaire, mais se poursuit tout au long du dernier acte vers une conclusion remplie de remords et de regret, le peignage d'un lac pour un corps, la découverte d'un autre dans un accident de voiture. Un couple réuni des cendres de leurs aînés. Magnifiquement photographié et méticuleusement cadré et monté, c’est un film vivifiant et souvent réconfortant que l’on qualifierait de chef-d’œuvre si ce n’était pas déjà un pléonasme de le dire, du fait que Yoshida ne réalise que des chef-d’œuvres. Quelqu'un a-t-il utiliser le cinéma pour présenter l'existence humaine dans un paysage métaphysique étrange et abstrait autant que Yoshida le ferait avec Mariko…
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Someone once said that underground works tend to remain that way for a reason. This is not one of those cases. A Story Written With Water is a profoundly thoughtful, beautifully shot film by what I hear was an avant-garde director named Yoshishige Yoshida. Now, maybe this comes from other movies of his that I haven’t had the opportunity to see yet, but the impression I get from this movie is a lot more akin to, say, In The Mood For Love than it is to , I don’t know, Wild Strawberries or something (I’m not too big on the whole avant-garde experimental thing).
Now, I would be lying if I said there wasn’t a certain amount of experimentation here.…
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اسم این فیلم خیلی دقیق انتخاب شده. شیوه روایت فیلم دقیقاً یک حالت آب گونه و سیال داره که البته این سیالیت بیشتر از نظر پس و پیش رفتن در زمان هست. فیلم به صورت بی وقفه در حال رفت و آمد از زمان حال به زمان گذشته است که این گذشته البته دوره های پراکنده ای رو در برمیگیره ولی تیکه های پازل فیلم، اونقدر خوب کنار هم چیده شدن که باعث نمیشن برای دنبال کردن داستان فیلم دچار مشکل بشیم. آب البته جز این نقش پررنگی در خواب ها، خاطرات و وقایع زمان حال فیلم دارن و انگار که همیشه حضور نامحسوسی در پس زمینه داره. هر چی فیلم جلوتر میره، حالت هذیان گونه تری هم پیدا می…
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Youth is just another burden.
A melancholic film, described as “anti melodrama”, where a young man struggles with his single mother having a long term affair with his fiancée’s father.
I’ve mentioned the umbrella motif in Japanese films before & here it is a prominent theme, not as a romantic linking but as a sign of individuality and independence.
Many, many scenes through wire fences, barred windows, beaded doorways - each of the four main protagonists are trapped.
The crazy camera angles or movement, lighting or framing goes into overdrive in the last quarter as each character becomes unhinged in their own way.
Very stylistic, that “new wave” look, even though the director claims he wasn’t part of any movement per se.
Radiance BluRay, no commentary track but a few interviews as extras & (of course) a booklet.
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"No news on a baby?"
"I don't want one. Our baby wouldn't be happy."It's funny that this is the start of Yoshida's "anti-melodrama" phase, because otherwise that's exactly the word I'd use.
Yoshida's films are always beguiling, & I'll admit I was struggling to keep up at a lot of points because the man hates exposition equally as much as he does American film grammar. Both of those make his films utterly magnetic to watch, & incredibly rewarding to revisit, but they always seem to leave me cold on a first watch.
He's really one of the few filmmakers I'd trust with subject matter this heavy, though. Even as this moves towards more elliptical & dreamlike sequences towards the end, this is always respectful to the characters & devastating to the audience. Perhaps one of the best final scenes I've ever seen.