It is an indisputable fact that psychoanalytic theory has fallen out of grace in the world of psychiatry and film-theory. Yet, the indestructibly of Freud’s invention of the talking cure and the inability to erase the body of psychoanalytic theory from universities and the wider societal field underlines that psychoanalysis succeeds in revealing the intricacies and contradictions of our psyche like no other. 

[A Story Writteb With Water has been released on Blu-Ray by Radiance. Click the above banner to go to the product-page.]

Whether novelist Yokiro Ishizaka, who wrote the novel upon which this film is based, had any knowledge about Freudian psychoanalytic theory cannot be proven, yet the psychological depth of Yoshishige Yoshida’s adaptation can only be fully appreciated by utilizing Freudian concepts. By applying this theory, we will enable the spectator to read the various psychological layers of Yoshida’s narrative with clarity and help him discern the very unspoken that structures the dramatic interactions that pushes the narrative to its climax.

The narrative of A Story Written With Water starts when young banker Shizuo Matsutani (Yasunori Irikawa), after returning from sexual encounter at a drinking party at a local geisha house, confesses his  doubt about marrying Yumiko (Ruriko Asaoka) to his mother Shizuka (Mariko Okada). Yet, this doubt has nothing to do with his adultery, but everything with the function of the motherly image within his psyche.

The importance of the motherly image in Shizuo’s subjective logic is elegantly brought to the fore by the narrative structure that beautifully patterns the present with Shizuo and Shizuka’s flashbacks. By exploring Shizuo’s formative moments, the spectator is introduced to the motherly image that unconsciously determines his acts and enunciations and, by delving into Shizuka’s past, the way she, as subject, organizes her sexual and romantic life becomes increasingly clear. This refined layered drama is thus not simply an exploration of the consequences of a child’s love for his mother, but a harrowing but sensual examination of the romantic struggles caused by the clash between a subject’s infantile parental fixations and the shifting aesthetic ideals and societal expectations.

The whole drama of A Story Written With Water is caused by Shizuo’s inability to give up his mother as the primary object of his love (Narra-note 1). Yet, as Yoshida evocatively underlines in a flashback, it is not Shizuka as such that is the object of Shizuo’s love, but the fantasized ideal of his mother – a monumental fantasy that never was and never will be. Shizuka’s real presence only function as a support for this mother. Shizuo’s societal position as banker proves that this libidinal fixation allowed him to orient himself within the societal field and attain a certain neurotic normality.

Yet, the clash between the two relational triangles that structure A Story written With Water – i.e. Shizuo, Shizuka, and Yumiko and bank boss Yamazaki (Masakazu Kuwayama), Shizuka, and Yumiko’s father Denzo Hashimoto (Isao Yamagata), reveals that Shizuka is not only a desexualized support for her son, but also a sexual being for the male Other, i.e. Yamazaki and Hashimoto.  

This conflictual split echoes within the relational dynamic between Yumiko and Shizuo. It is clear that Yumiko’s desire fuels their interactions. While Yumiko allows Shizuo to uphold a manly ego – he is allowed to refuse her pre-marital sexual invitation, her active desire and demand for his love bashes his door at every turn. To put it differently, Shizuo is unable to introduce his own sexual desire within their relationship, because he is unable to turn Yumiko, his fiancée, into the support for the phantasmatic motherly image that grounds his logic. Despite their vague resemblance, Yumiko, the epitome of post-war female modernity, radically lacks the reserved elegance of traditionality that his mother seemingly fully embodies (Narra-note 2, General-note 1).

It might surprise some spectators that Shizuo’s phantasmatic image is resistant to the repeated confrontations with Shizuka’s sexuality – both in the guise of the Other’s sexual interest in her as well as the expression of her own sexual desire. A Story Written With Water underlines that, while this phantasmatic image find its support in the bodily presence of the mother, this image, the main cog within Shizuo’s logic, functions separately from her actual presence in the social field. Furthermore, the fixation on this motherly image, which instigates Shizuo’s doubt and conflicting feelings about marrying Yumiko, does not hinder him from addressing Shizuka, as subject, about her sexual escapades and to whom her desire is truly directed.   

 

While the sexual nature of his mother cannot derail Shizuo’s phantasmatic image, the unavoidability of glancing at his mother’s sexuality does instigate a subjective conflict. As Shizuka can only function as the support for Shizuo’s fixation by appearing a-sexual and non-desiring, the truth of his mother’s sexuality cannot but clash with the fixed image of traditional motherhood. It is this clash, instigated by Denzo’s desiring presence, that deflates Shizuo’s sexual desire (Narra-note 3, Narra-note 4). So, how will he resolve this conflict, regain his subjective stability and ability to sexually desire (Narra-note 5)? How far will he go to ensure that his mother remains the a-sexual support for his libidinal and sexual fixation (Narra-note 6)?         

While the composition of A Story Written With Water features many pleasing dynamic moments, it is the static dimension that delivers visual elegance and, as a result, continuously pleases the spectator’s eye. The visual elegance that characterizes Yoshida’s composition is not only due to the thoughtful way Yoshida utilizes geometry in his shot-compositions – creating engaging visual tensions at every turn, but how he applies monochrome contrasts to make compositions more distinct and thus more pleasing for the spectator’s eye. Yoshida dazzles the spectator with many incredible powerful moments of visual beauty.

If we look at Yoshida’s sensual composition more carefully, we realize that the visual contrast between modernity and Japanese traditionality echoes within the shot-compositions as such (Cine-note 1). Yoshida exploits geometry and uses the compositional power of shadows to highlight, with subtility, the contrast between the modern and traditional aesthetic and sensual sensibilities.  Much of the visual elegance of A Story Written With Water is function by the fluid way Yoshida brings the aesthetic ideal called Iki (i.e. the beauty of carefully calculated visual simplicity) to life on the screen.

A Story Written With Water is quite simply a masterpiece; a film every movie enthusiast needs to see at least once. Yoshida avoids the seductive trap of bombastic melodrama to deliver an exquisitely layered psychological drama that unveils how a subject’s fixation on a phantasmatic image disrupts his ability to commit himself romantically to the female other.   

Notes

Narra-note 1: Shizuo’s flashback reveals that the contour of the mother peacefully sitting in the water as well as her loving embrace are the defining characteristics of the image of the ideal mother that persists in his mental logic.  

Moreover, the relational triangle staged within the flashback enables the spectator to understand why this ideal image retains such a hold over Shizuo. The sudden infraction of the father as failure – the father crudely revealed as a human devoid of what the female other desires, created an opening for Shizuo to consider himself the sole object of his mother’s love, as the one who has what the mother desires.

The father’s command on his deathbed to protect Shizuka strengthens Shizuo’s fixation on the fantasy of a mother that can only feel complete by being with him.

Narra-note 2: Some spectators might wonder why Shizuo accepts the geisha’s sexual advances while refusing to fulfill his fiancée’s sexual want. This contrast is the first sign that his desire is not aroused by the image of female modern elegance (i.e. Yumiko), but by the motherly sheen of seductive traditionality (i.e. the geisha).

General-note 1: While some reviewers and critics read Yoshida’s film as a critique on how the Japanese patriarchal system organizes sexual relationships and sexual desire, we feel Yoshida first and foremost explores the effects of a fixation on a mythic asexual loving mother on the subject’s ability to love within a changing societal field.  

Narra-note 3: The centrality of the ideal mother within Shizuo’s subjective logic also explains why his anger is mainly directed at Denzo. It is ultimately his sexual appetite that puts Shizuka’s function as support for Shizuo’s subjective equilibrium into jeopardy – she is but a victim of his patriarchal lust.  

Narra-note 4: It is quite surprising when Shizuo explains his faltering sexual desire for her with the lurking presence of Denzo. While this conscious enunciation seemingly contradicts our analysis concerning the impact of Shizuo’s motherly fixation on his desire, it should be evident that Denzo’s presence around the premises calls forth the sexual nature of his mother in his mind.

Narra-note 5: While the shifting aesthetic ideals complicates Shizuo’s desire, the true obstacle to let his desire be aroused by Yumiko is the very presence of the mother. To put it differently, the motherly ideal cannot be supported by two different speaking beings.

Narra-note 6: In the later part of the narrative, a delirious dream sequence radically confirms Shizuo’s sexual fixation on his idealized mother. Yet, the same dream also shows Shizuo the solution: the possibibility to utilize Yumiko’s resemblance to his mother to continue to love the impossible motherly image that stabilizes and orients him in the societal field.

Cine-note 1: To deliver pleasing shot-compositions, Yoshida exploits modern car-mirrors, traditional Latice doors, as well as the framing ability of windows.