La femme d'eau

She's water, he's fire, and if you expect to get more plot than this, forget it. This is very much a character and atmosphere piece, and the story that comes

together around Hidenori Sugimori's astounding visuals is powerful and well

told, without the typical (and western) dramatic elements that drive a narrative forward. The climatic scenes here are about texture, not tension.

I loved this film and felt it to be in the same strong but under-appreciated

showings of, say, Terrence Malick and David Gordon Green--filmmakers that

know something about light and sound and the importance of these to good

cinematic story telling. We should expect more from visual narrative, and Mizu No Onna doesn't disappoint; still, there's something missing here that takes

away from the elegance that might have been more fully achieved. I think it's in the attempt to find a beginning, middle and end to a story which should have

built quietly to an emotional intensity, then broke off, as happens in life.

Closure is a western psychological requirement (why denouement?); life is seldom so

neat. In trying to give too much mythic and story significance to its characters, the film undoes its own beautifully told story. The symbols of the Elements (fire, water) are everywhere, and they're not always given to us poetically. We're hit over the head with them, and more: we're given a village idiot, who will, in the best narrative tradition, foretell or undo; a strange demi-god. There's no need for any of this, especially since the visuals and sound do such a good job at giving over the story. Still, this is a powerful and successful effort.

Special mention goes to Yoko Kanno whose classically-drawn score completes

the powerful sight and sound experience.

This films story is not very engaging but I found myself enjoying many of it's moments purely for the visual poetry. The scenes of men and women in the bath house, the 9crazy?) woman's living space complete with chickens, the incarnations of the painting of Mt. Fuji on the wall...all these images will stay with me for awhile after I have forgotten what the film was about. UA gives a good performance as a woman haunted by the rain and Asanobu does a good job with what little is given him in the way of character. Don't expect to come away moved by the drama of the film but you may feel as if you have been to a rather good gallery showing.

Movies usually follow a guideline which is usually set by most other movies. Namely Hollywood pieces. Mizu no Onna follows the same guidelines in part, but is otherwise an entirely unique film. It is a very aesthetic movie, and the story lies not in the what is said, but what the viewer sees. It is a movie based on moods and feelings. Watching it will surely inspire any aspirating filmmaker. You will not like this movie if you expect to watch another show following the same guidelines for storytelling as any other movie. This is extraordinary, and extraordinarily beautiful. The performance by UA and Asano Tadanobu, the music by Kanno Yoko, and not least the visuals of this movie in itself makes this a movie one to watch.

The oddly named UA plays a woman who has a profound association with water. She runs a bath house, and every time something important happens in her life it rains. She meets drifter Tadanobu Asano, and the two embark on a strange sort of relationship.

MIZU NO ONNA is a strange little art film, about a couple of alienated characters and... water. Not much else. The plot is wafer thin, the characters equally so. Performances are good but deliberately understated. Little happens and little is learned, over quite a long time. The strange connection UA has with the rain is barely explored throughout most of the film.

There's some nicely filmed sequences and one or two lines of dialogue that aren't totally banal, but ultimately the film is VERY VERY BORING and delivers little in terms of pay off.

Avoid.

It bugs me when people complain about Hollywood drivel, but then tear apart any movie that wanders too far from the plot diagram you learned in junior high language arts. Like most foreign films, Japanese dramas require a different sensibility to get the most out of them. Mizu no Onna is almost a textbook example. Sure, it has it's problems. It is a good half-hour too long, the nameless biker chick played by Hikaru is pretty much unnecessary, and I actually hit a point where I wished Ryo would put her s**t back on already. (and on a technical note, the contrast in the first third of the film was way to harsh). But the reviews people have written already make me feel like I should be defending it.

This is very much a character piece. The plot is low key, the dialogue minimal (and, as someone else mentioned, not everything is given the Dr. Watson scientific explanation, which I actually thought was a plus). But the two main characters are interesting and, with a couple of blips, well developed. UA and Tadanobu Asano do brilliant jobs of portraying two contrasting people drawn together by their respective marginalisation. This is almost entirely done through body language and the cinematography (though yes, some of the mood setting shots of rain do drag on. It's wet, we get it.) The plot isn't particularly convoluted, and quite easy to follow as long as you actually listen to the dialogue.

There are some cultural nuances that some people won't get. The bath-house culture, in particular, with all it's nostalgia and community spirit, is hard to convey unless you've been to one, and this is rather important to understanding the character development. A lot of Japanese films, even artsy ones, are quite accessible to foreign audiences, but gMizu no onnah is perhaps more 'Japanese' than most. If you can accept that, and sit through the first 20-30 minutes or so (after which it seems to find it's rhythm), it's a very attractive and thoughtful film. There are worse ways to spend a rainy afternoon.