August in the Water

There is no need here to focus on technical aspects of the film, or style, or even story, because it is all handled with a perfect, careful balance, so as to achieve the ultimate goal of the film: to provide an abstract framework for an experience that we have all had to reckon with in our transition from youth to adulthood.

When we are young, we assign godlike power to certain elements of our world. Speaking from personal experience, I was faced with a love for a girl in my youth that was so overwhelmingly strong that I could no longer function in any other area of my life; a kind of First Spark, the loss of which is so bittersweet because truly nothing ever strikes the same chord again. It is like a beautiful color that you only see once, never to witness again. This sadness is the encompassing drought that affects us all. No water can survive here, and we all fall victim to it, some of us drying out completely.

It is not just love that is lost in this dry spell, though. It may be talent, friendship, or wonder itself. But the truth is that we do not truly know the function of this world, and that there are indeed forces beyond our control that dictate our very small lives. We are always comparing today to yesterday, forgetting to nurture the power of the meaningful aspects of our lives, and so we dry up. We turn to stone, and we die the death.

Yes, it is fearful, to face this wall of stone, but it comes for each of us.

I think what is so beautiful about this film is its perfect understanding that abstract concepts of our lives must be handled abstractly, not concretely, and the sidelined narrative allows for this abstraction to truly shine. This is something that I think many artists in the West struggle or completely fail to understand, that abstraction can say so much more than words ever can. There is a distinct feeling that is being delivered here, and it is multifaceted. By the time the credits roll, there is a whirlpool of emotions and questions left swirling, and I think any piece of art that can accomplish this is a huge success. We do not always need hard answers for our lives, because life itself is multifaceted, ever-changing, and unique to each of us. That is why I love a film that reflects that, and this film does it in a perfect Japanese fashion.

My only real criticism here, and it is a very small matter of taste- yes, it is hard to criticize this film since it is so masterful in all areas- is that I wish it would actually lean more heavily into true abstraction. There are times when I was perhaps expecting it to lean further and further into real unknown territory, maybe visually, since the sonics were A+ at all times. To accompany this supernatural sense that was being conveyed, though, by actually Going to that place visually would be very nice. It felt like there was an unknowable and surreal world churning below the surface that I thought would poke its head out at least once or twice, but it never really happened. That is my only small, personal complaint.

Truly a beautiful film, though. I will cherish it forever, and water this flower of love as often as I can.

There's a new girl at high school, Isuku (Rena Komine), whose arrival as a high diving champion creates quite a splash. Her appearance coincides with a double meteorite strike in the forest outside the town, which inexplicably acts as a catalyst for a drought and a local epidemic which causes ones inner organs to turn to stone. Taking in the whole spectrum of pre-Millennial New Age phenomena, Ishii's bizarre film is a bit of a mixed bag. Thematically, its a real inspiration: The X-Files notwithstanding, this sort of imaginative pseudo-scientific fantasy stands uniquely amongst contemporary cinematic output. To my mind it evokes the more imaginative sci-fi pictures from the 60's or 70's, such as ‘Quatermass and the Pit' or ‘Doomwatch'. ). Unfortunately in execution it is often unfocussed and confusing, lurching from one idea to the next (Gaia theory, Chaos theory) but never quite drawing any satisfying conclusions. It has a detached air about it which I personally find to be the case in a lot of Japanese films. This is often down to the cultural and linguistic differences, though in this case it is the plotting which is most likely the cause. It perhaps suffers from trying to fit just too much into its running time, and the finale is rambling and unnecessarily protracted. Stylistically the film admirably eschews expensive visual effects or CGI in its portrayal of the assorted esoteric ephemera, settling for natural lighting, brightly lit exteriors, rapid multiple-angle edits, and abstracted close-ups of natural phenomena (much akin to ‘Pi'). Ishii certainly has an aesthetic eye, and the film possesses an oneiric quality that will remain with the viewer for a long period afterwards.

Dealing with cosmic (in)significance, aliens and ecological concerns, August in the Water captures the essence of a astronomically pure mood using only nebulous visuals present in reality, transcending the universe' beauty of what exists in nature. Numerous motifs and philosophical questions are also used: extraterrestrials, the origin of humans or ancient, mystically inscribed stones. With a plot bursting with enigmatic, imaginative and sometimes ludicrous ideas augmented by the magical realism atmosphere.

At the risk of sounding like a weak reviewer, there were definitely parts of August in the Water that reminded me of other films, but in good ways. Also, not in ways that felt derivative or too samey. I think this is entirely its own thing, even to the point where I don't know completely what to make of it, but I liked the experience it offered. It's slow, quiet, and empty, but always has something under the surface to keep things feeling oddly energized and going forward.

There's also a strong sense of mystery at the heart of August in the Water that I wasn't really expecting would be resolved, but that's okay. It feels like it's exploring things that are beyond our understanding, maybe a little like the eerie - yet not exactly scary - scenes near the end of Close Encounters of the Third Kind (which I got reminded me a bit of). There's also the sense of a very quiet, understated, and probably realistic set of vaguely apocalyptic occurrences (if you choose to read accidents and misfortunes that way), and the very by-the-numbers ways these things occurred made me think of Threads a bit.

It's a bold-looking movie; never too flashy, but never boring to take in. It captures the pleasant boredom and heat of summer well, and is remarkably different to the other films I've seen from Gakuryû Ishii, at least stylistically. If it starts to lose the plot a little at the end... I can't be too mad. That was always likely, and also I'm tired, so maybe I missed something. But I do feel like there was a quality to this that was engrossing, and while it was super slow, I didn't feel it was boring very often at all. The use of music also stood out to me, and definitely added something.

I wanted to start August off right and I knew August in the Water just had to be watched after my experiences with Gakuryu Ishii back in January. Mixing New Age spirituality, animism, astrophysics and advancement in technology, August in the Water can easily be described as the quintessential vaporware film, often feeling like several overlapping films that somehow complement and deepen each other's various mysteries. Ishii crafts a film that largely unfolds as a succession of mood pieces, remaining optimistic as it deconstructs the meaninglessness of our existence while simultaneously offering a hallucinatory analysis of coming-of-age malaise. The direction and framing are just sumptuous, it's all handled in a familiar and comforting style not too far removed from other Japanese filmmakers of the '90s. Part of that comfort comes from the film's incredible sound design and gorgeous musical score by Hiroyuki Onogawa, new age sound blending with classical synthesisers. Exceptionally intriguing and self-assured exercise in style with wry observations about modern Japanese life, August in the Water is simply beautiful in its deliverance, one that I can't recommend enough.