Imamura's Warm Water Under a Red Bridge

[kiseko minaguchi]

Aaron's review on Yomiuri gives a perfect analysis of Imamura's current film
as a parody of male fantasies. I would like to add to his note of Tome in
Nippon Konchuki (1963) my feeling that Saeko seems to partially echo the
abnormal interdependence of Tome and her retarded father,  both physical and
psychical. Tome was given a more realistic identity than Saeko, but Tome's
cathartic experience of breastfeeding her father, a remnant of the ending
shot of -The Grapes of Wrath-, impresses me as floated into the development
of Saeko. Saeko is captured in a fable's setting as a hormonal battery which
discharges holy water to nurture herself and others for the undiminished
echo-cycling for human and unhuman coexistence.
Minaguchi
----- Original Message -----
??? : "Arnold M" <ma_iku at hotmail.com>
?? : <KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
???? : 2001?11?8? 15:44
?? : Re: Imamura's Warm Water Under a Red Bridge


> Many thanks to Aaron Gerow for posting his review of Imamura's film here.
>
> I suppose part of my dissatisfaction has to do with the seemingly
immediate
> assumption that a story about a woman with a "strange" sexual condition
> simply must be the product of a sexist male fantasy, especially when it's
> so difficult to take the story seriously.  (I and the other few viewers
> were laughing a little during the film... maybe it was just a nervous
> laugh.)  I largely agree with Aaron's comments though, especially the
point
> that ultimately the woman was very "shallow".  She didn't command much
> attention (except from her partner).  Maybe it was just my imagination
> getting away with me, but the factory and industrial-polluted rivers
> subplot, along with flashbacks of Saeko's crazed, phallus-worshipping
> mother, seemed to be trying to reveal this woman's legendary ability
itself
> as a male construction, making a joke of the hero's dreams of returning to
> the amniotic fluids.  Conscious or not, through exaggeration the idea of
> women's super-natural life 'energy' almost became a parody of itself.
> Unfortunately, the only womb Sasano returns to at the end is one of cold
> concrete, accepting Saeko as a male fantasy or whatever she is.
>
> I think it was definitely a movie aimed at (heterosexual) men.  But still,
> I have to wonder how many of Imamura's other films succeeded in being
> relevent to "women" or their other intended (?) subjects.  Anyway, my
> friend gave me two tickets, so I should go see it again before I dig
myself
> into an even deeper hole.  (Sorry, no pun intended.)
>
> Does anyone know anything about the story's author?
>
> For "worst movie" would that count Japanese films from 2001 only, or
> Japanese films we saw in 2001?  Otogiriso would probably be my worst from
> 2001, Freeze Me my worst watched in 2001.  Miyazaki's new movie might take
> the "most disappointing" award.
>
> Michael Arnold
>
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