Futatsume no mado

This film is about life and death and love, about existence itself. It talks to us from a far away island surrounded by the Ocean. Of course if you want to perceive such things you must open your mind, listen very carefully and most important you must take your time. Because the film goes slowly, with a pace we are not used to and that you could hate in the beginning or that could make you fall asleep.

Since most things pass through your eyes the director has to show you what you must see: trees, faces, waves… and the camera lingers on these things the time needed to make sure that your feelings are correctly oriented and you are ready to understand.

I'm not sure that everybody is going to like it. Me? Personally I loved it (after a while). And in the end I thought that the Author was correct about everything... for example: aren't kisses the hallmark of love?

No, the last film of Naomi Kawase, internationally known as "Still the water", is not a film reserved to "intellectual people", as I heard recently. If we refer to "Last year at Marienbad" (Resnais-1961) as a film for"intellectual people", we find no common point, except slowness of the rhythm.

The spectator should only follow the example of the female heroin, Kyoko, who, in one scene at the beginning, dives into the sea with all her clothes (except her shoes), and enjoy this bath, meeting joyfully with the old-fellow fisherman, "PapyTortoise".

Following her example, we, spectators, should dive into the film, and enjoy the play of sunlight across the branches of the old banyan, just in front of the terrace of Kyoko's house; enjoy the meals lovely prepared by Kyoko's father (so much different from the meals eaten in a restaurant at Tokyo by Kaito, Kyoko's lover, and his father; and completely opposed to the food left by Kaito's mother in the refrigerator); enjoy even the soft departure of Isa, Kyoko's mother, after a long illness, among songs and dances.

I love so much this warm celebration of la joie de vivre, typically a Japanese one, as, after each disaster, typhoon, earthquake or tsunami, we see Japanese people build again, with a strong faith in life, all that has been destroyed.

I am a big admirer of Japanese cinema, film makers like Kurusawa, Koreeda, Oshima Imamura and the list goes on. And also from time to time I enjoy slow cinema, but in the case of Naomi Kawase Still The Water and her other previous film "Mourning Forest" for witch reasons i don't understand why the jury awarded it the grand prize there were far better films competing that year like Russia's entry and brilliant The Banishment. Still the water had an interesting concept for a great story and its tropical location and beautiful cinematography, still the screenplay falls flat the characters seem to sleepwalk through the whole film. I truly believe Naomi makes film for her and friends and she is unaware that audiences outside her realm are falling asleep to her films. i give this film a D.

That movie to contemplate the silence of the scenes while we reflect on the events, beautiful, poetic, intense, you have to pay attention to detail, and then I get lost, the charming Kyoko's family, strong scenes like the goat, hunting, bloody, rising sensuality and purity in nudity, simple and painful death, scenes broken by the sea and its surf, cold photography, blue and gray, passionate...

Disregard the bubble gum chewing burgers with attention deficit disorder whining about this movie being "boring". Sure, it is slow paced. But it's a very profound and beautiful allegory about nature and life. If you cannot appreciate the poetry of this film, I'm afraid your soul has been rotted away or you never had one.