Still the Water

Entering into adulthood on the island of Amami, where centuries-old tradition mixes with modernity, and nature still has an influence on people’s lives. Naomi Kawase, despite opinions about typical Japanese detachment, talks about the Japanese soul, which is alive and hot. Sixteen-year-old Kaito finds in the water the body of a man who died under mysterious circumstances. The boy suspects that his always-absent, divorced mother who is trying to get her life in order is somehow connected. His friend, Kyoko, the daughter of a local shaman and cafe owner, who, although in her parents’ eyes is "a child in a big body," is becoming a woman. Among ritual songs and dances, she says good-bye to her dying mother, becomes more like her grandmother, falls in love, and plans her initiation. Kawase’s film is a nostalgic, raw, wind-blown tribute to womanhood that is full of the mysteries of the element of water. For a woman, maturation reminds her of a joyous leap into the depths of the sea without concern for the consequences; for a man, it is marked by anxiety.

Agnieszka Szeffel