|
| FUKAI KAWA (Deep River) |
| to Florence M.C Nguyen Provisorial Translation from the essay in shomingeki No. 1, November/December 1995 I. The old buildings of the sacred city Benares and the titles as a foreseeing about the things, the film will tell about. These buildings, once constructed by human hands are beginning to decay into its elements. A total shot of narrow country roads on which a bus full of Japanese tourist is driving. The landscape, the animals, which are very close to the streets and the bus. Like the camera, the bus is realising parts of the world, like the objective, it offers only a fragment of the world. Before the story can begin, the camera searches in the bus the faces of the characters. At first, the voice-over from the Japanese Mitsuko Naruse. But than, the camera stops unexpectedly in front of an old mans face. With a few shots, this film moves from common to concrete parts of a film story. Just in the first shots, we realize this film will deal with several persons, who exist independant from each other, but whose stories can be connected with each other. II. The first flashback, which turns from an observating perspective into a subjective one. The story of the widower Isobe: Scenes in a hospitals x-ray laboratory, in which we see pictures of the deadly sick wife of Isobe. At her bed, tenderly conversations between the aging couple, which seem at the same time helpless and moving. Than a view from the room out of the window to a tree, which sheets are moving softly in the wind. Strangely off-side from the story, an imagine of the things which are being. A cooking, clapping tea kettle on an oven which wakes up him at night. Later, his wife tells him, that she dreamt exactly what has happen to him at night. The sequence, which deals about a supernatural situation is at the same time of analytic severity, obviously divided in shots. At his wives bed, she tells him about her believe in reincarnation. A cut - and we see Isobe with relatives and friends at the funeral. Later, when everybody has gone, a shot of the empty corridor shows the loneliness of the widow. All this gives already an idea about the fascination of Japanese cinema in its tension between the illusion of a fictive world and the disillusion through the transparence of the cinematographical movement as a sequel of shots, which appear sometimes like a still. In the second flashback, Mitsuko is introduced, a young woman in her thirties. Mitsuko in a pink-coloured T-shirt among other students. They are mocking themselves about the shy Christian student Otsu. Few moments later, they are sitting in a quite noble bar. They make bad jokes with Otsu, who hardly can bear alcohol. In the background, two musicians play music on a harp and a flute. Outside of the action, but as present as the involved persons. This, one of the most beautiful scenes of the film is a concrete reference to a cinema tradition, which preferred to count on loveable composed pictures instead of illusions. For a short period, Otsu and Mitsuko become a couple. Later she rejects him and becomes for herself the most lonely character in the film. Lyon, a few years later: Mitsuko, now married with a rich businessman (in red clothes and different styled hair), phones from a hotel room with Otsu, who studies theology in France. A walk among walls, which look like an antique amphitheatre, she in a blue jacket, he in a black priests rope. A travelling shot follows them discretely. The blue of Mitsukos jacket and the monotone movement are evoking a strange coldness and alienation. At their farewell, they depart in different directions. For moments, an universe of distance seems to be between them. Emptiness, loneliness, farewell to the unexpected. In the Lyon-chapter, there are appearing fragments of accidental sacred music, like short ideas of deliverance. The search for the person we love most may be the search for god. III. (written on a train Montréal-Québec, September, 5, 95) The bus drives through the night. The framing plot could transits into the main plot. The story of Mitsuko in India could begin. But the camera stops on the face of the old Kiguchi, a war veteran, who is recalling a friend, who died recently. This friend (played by Toshiro Mifune with the charismatic but now thinly face) has saved his live during wartime. His friends wife told Kiguchi, that his friend saved his live through eating the flesh of another camerad. Since that, he is tortured by painful feelings of guiltiness. A flashback into a flashback, black and white and silent. An almost starved soldier commits suicide with a grenade. A hard cut to a flower (coloured) and the sound of the explosion we don't see. Instead of a speculative effect, Kumai reduces the movement to a picture. Sometimes it seems that FUKAI KAWA reminds us, that cinema is consisting of pictures and the cinematographic illusion is nothing else than a phenomenon of the machine and the human eye. The first half of the film is over, the bus reaches the sacred city Benares. An ocean of lights, people in the streets. Three persons on the search for spiritual truth or just for themselves, a tourist couple on the search for pictures with their camera. The imagine of the goddess Chamunda in the temple. Two indian musicians playing in the bus. In that frame, they have the same presence like the musicians from the beginning of the film. In one scene, Mitsuko is talking with the travel guide in a hotel bar. In the background, we see the bar keeper working with his drinks. The reunion of Mitsuko and Otsu: Otsu, now in shabby clothes, but seemingly mentally more stable. Mitsuko (now with a short haircut) is divorced. The story of Mitsuko and Otsu could begin from new and is almost finished now. The widow sees his death wife during the river landscape at night. A double lightning, obviously as an effect of the cinematographic apparatus, which will soon be asked by the pure presence of the things. Mitsuko dressed in a blue sari, bathing in the Ganga. Kiguchi praying in the temple for the death friends soul. Sequences which are composing themselves to a ceremony, which is at the same time one of the religion and one of cinema. IV. (written on a train Québec-Montréal, September, 8, 1995) A tourist tries to take pictures from a hindu funeral ceremony. While the enraged hindus follow him, Otsu tries to get the photo camera for avoiding a massacre. The fall Otsus from steep stone stairs: A detail shot of his foot, which losses its stability. The movement, is slowed by slow motion followed by the sound of the fall, which we don't see any more, but which goes more under the skin than every speculative effect. The day of departure: Japanese are waiting for the bus in the hotel lobby. In one shot we see on the left side the tourist couple. On the table, their is the film, which provoked Otsus accident ( and later his death). On the right side sits Mitsuko. She waits for news from the hospital. Her face is almost emotionless. Shots, which hardly inform about the persons mental situation. But in my imagination, they are getting a likely intensity like the famous strawberry cake-sequence in THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS. Mitsuko and a Hindu, who recites a prayer, both driving in a boat on the river. Celebratory, he is putting the death Otsu´s ashes into the Ganga. Like the Zen-student Honkakubo at the end of SEN NO RIKYU, Mitsuko stays with empty hands. She has let go everything, but won something like believe. At the end, a small decorated candlelight is driving on the river at twilight time, moving far and faraway from the boat. The story is finished. The film story, created by humans hand dies and is given over to the elements. The deserted Ganga. My interpretation of that subject about love that finds only fulfilment in the death would be pessimistic. But the cinematographical spirituality of the Japanese Kei kumai tells a very different story. The films end is like a giving back of men and things, which were lent for the film story. FUKAI KAWA connects traditions of Japanese realism and the reflections about its limits, references to classical Japanese cinema with its admiration for every single shot as a souveren emancipated picture in the film, and the presentation of what the film narration is consist of. In FUKAI KAWA, Kei Kumais most beautiful film since SEN NO RIKYU (1989), we can make a lot of experiences about cinema and film making. Rüdiger Tomczak |