At first glance, the industrial city of Amagasaki appears to be a provincial city like any other. Yet, due to the blossoming of factories, who continuously pumped-up groundwater, the city became vulnerable to flood damage by storm surges. Luckily, with the building of the Amalock – a sea elevator and lock gate, the city of Amagasaki succeeded in protecting its citizens and economy from many disasters.

Director Kazuhiro Nakamura, born in Amagasaki, utilizes the setting of his hometown and the Amalock as a signifier to craft a romance narrative with many dramatic twists. The first twist, the one that inaugurates the narrative, is when Yuko Chikamatsu (Noriko Eguchi), who transformed into a Neet after her company fired her, learns that her father Ryutaro (Tsurube Shofukutei) will remarry with the 20-year-old Saki Aizawa (Ayami Nakajo).

Yet, before confronting the spectator with this surprising twist, Nakamura explores the oedipal constellation that determined Yuko’s subjectivity. What’s puzzling for Yuko is why her mother Aiko (Yuri Nakamura) desires her father (Satoru Matsuo). While Yuko knowns her mother desires Ryutaro – he is the family’s amalock, our protector, Yuko Chikamatsu merely sees a subject who lazes around all day, who does nothing at his company or hangs in front of his television to watch the Hanshin Tigers. For Aiko, Amalock is a signifier of desire, but Yuko feels her father merely exploits this signifier to be as ‘static’ as the actual lock gate.

The impact of the oedipal constellation on the adult Yuko might be quite surprising for some. By fixating herself on the signifier ‘do it properly’ and ‘contribute to society’ in her childhood – two signifiers that structure her rigid ego-ideal, she did not only refuse the passivity of the father and the riddle of her mother’s desire, but radically erased the dynamic of desire from her subjective logic. This ego-ideal complicates any kind of relationship with others from childhood on and, eventually, turns her into a cold workaholic that has lost sight on the very aim of trying to realize one’s ego-ideal: the Other’s love (Psycho-note 1). It is the absence of this desire for desire in her rigid logic that makes her treat her co-workers as dirt and ultimately leads to her dismissal.       

The effect of this sudden societal refusal hits Yuko quite hard. With her rigid chase to realize her ego-ideal suddenly thwarted, she slowly slips into a position of isolation and subtle depression. It is in this state of being robbed of her drive and will to engage with the societal Other that Yuko encounters the riddle of female desire and her father’s desirability once more (Narra-note 1). The spectator, of course, ponders over the same questions as Yuko: What does the 20-year-old Saki desire in her father? What makes him desirable for the female Other?     

Yet, before the riddle of desire is given its full attention in the narrative, Nakamura has to explore the strange but conflictual dynamic between Yuko and Saki, between a young stepmother who tries to act motherly towards an older stepdaughter. This strange dynamic explodes when Saki presents Yuko a dating proposal, confronting her not only with the absence of love within her life, but also with the riddle of her own desire. Yet, maybe, further interactions with Saki and giving Hiroki Nagumo (…) a romantic chance will allow her to let desire into her life, realize what made her amalock-father desirable for the (female) Other, and maybe rewrite her thwarted subjective logic.

Nakamura crafts a composition with a flow that helps keeping the spectator engaged (Cine-note 1). While this flow is, of course, function of the way he combines static and dynamic shots, the emotional musical accompaniment also plays its role. The visual and emotional flow are neatly intertwined and complement each other. When the visual flow halts – due to a sudden concatenation of static shots, the music keeps the flow going and the spectator drifts along the emotional flow, ready to be touched by narrative twists and sudden subjective changes.

Amalock is a narrative that fluidly combines comedy and tragedy to deliver an experience of smiles and tears. The twist-rich narrative, supported by Noriko Eguchi’s great performance, allows the spectator to understand how a neurotic subject is led to repress the oedipal dynamic of desire within his own logic and functioning. Recommended.   

Notes

Psycho-note 1: The true aim of Yuko’s desire to contribute to society is, in our view, her mother’s love. Besides distancing herself from her passive father, she assumed this ideal in her childhood to prove that she is more desirable than her father.

The dynamic of desire that caused the assumption of this ideal was repressed the very moment that it transformed into a fixation, when it turned from a mere tool to reach the Other’s love into a narcissistic aim.          

Narra-note 1: As the defence of Yuko’s ego-ideal against the Other’s desire is compromised, she cannot avoid the confrontation with the riddle of Saki’s desire and her strange fixation on creating a familial harmony.

Cine-note 1: In some cases, Nakamura utilizes the visual decorative element of slow-motion to heighten the impact of certain emotional moments.