One of the ills contemporary speaking beings struggle with is the feeling of a nagging subjective emptiness. This emptiness is exploited by the capitalistic machinery to entrap the subject in a never-ending cycle of consumption. The whole dump of gadgets promises a solution to the subject’s discomfort, yet it merely perpetuates this emptiness – it feeds on this emptiness to function.

In Wash Away, Ikunosuke Okazaki explores the effect of this destructive logic on a subject and the only way to wash its emptying effects away: the medicative shift to focus on the other subject in relationships rather than the connecting object of pleasure. Okazaki’s narrative starts when soap girl Koyuki or Kana (Yuuka Nakao) receives a call from her mother Sanae (-) to ask her to take care of her grandmother Kie (Naoko Ken) during the week she is hospitalized. Unable to refuse, she takes the challenge to juggle the day-time care for her demented grandmother with the performative night-time sexual caring for her male customers (Narra-note 1).

It does not take long for the spectator to realize that the subject entrapped in the capitalistic logic is none other than Kana – she is ill of capitalistic modernity. The sorry state of her apartment echoes her state of emptiness (i.e. lacking desire) and her excessive spending exposes her ongoing attempt to erase her subjective emptiness by filling this void with luxury products (Narra-note 1).

While Kana interacts with her fellow soap girls Sumire (Yukari Nakagawa) and Kumi (Aya Shigematsu), the way she meets the other is determined by her capitalistic logic. She introduces signifiers like ‘money’ and ‘spending’ into the conversational fabric and utilizes her ‘friends’ to fleetingly feed her body with pleasure and push the emptiness temporarily away (e.g. by taking pictures of each other, by drinking alcohol, … etc.).

The other functions, first and foremost, as an object to support her own logic. Yet, by interacting with Sumire, Kumi and others, Kana cannot avoid the subjective effects of their signifiers. Some of their enunciations might perforate her capitalistic ego and confront her with her own conflictual feelings and lingering emptiness (Narra-note 2).    

Kana does succeed in turning her dementing grandmother into an address to reveal a sliver of her subjectivity to. As a human trashcan to throw her struggles with some of her costumers in, she becomes a stand-in for the Other, whose silence allows her to hear her own subject speak. Yet, when her grandmother refuses to cooperate once too many, she does not hesitate to hire a helper. Despite holding the promise to cause a shift in Kana’s subject, the care for her grandmother does not fit within her capitalistic logic – the selfless care does not generate money to spend her emptiness away (Narra-note 3).

I will not surprise the spectator that Wash Away reveals that Kana’s emptiness is closely related to the dimension of love and recognition. Kana’s void is, in other words, an echo of the lack of love in her interactions with others. Sadly, no object of consumption can truly resolve this lack of desire and recognition. Can Kana accept the necessary signifiers of the other, avoid the seductive pitfall of consumption, and interact, in a more direct way, with the o/Other?     

While Okazaki proves that he can combine a variety of visual decorations (e.g. slow-motion, rhythmic editing, …etc.) into a pleasing whole – i.e. the introduction sequence, the composition by which he tells Koyuki’s narrative is, as can be expected, more subdued. Yet, Okazaki retains some light-hearted decorative elements (e.g. waves, a moving silhouette, wipe transitions, …) throughout his composition to make transitions and cuts feel more fluid (Sound-note 1, Cine-note 1, Cine-note 2).  

Okazaki proves his mastery over the visual field by playing with the dynamic of association within his composition. In one case, the director blends imagery of the present and the near-future to visually reveal Koyuki’s concession to care for her grandmother before she agrees on the phone. In another case, Okazaki combines imagery from two different spaces and ominous musical accompaniment to create a fleeting horror-like sequence. These associative plays do not only enable him to spice-up his compositions, but to maintain the visual rhythm.

The few moments of visual extravagance should not detract the spectator from the fact that Okazaki’s composition is full of nicely composed shots and effective long takes. While the former merely heightens the visual pleasure of the audience, the latter emphasizes the performances of the cast. Okazaki does not merely give the cast the time to breathe life into their characters, but invites, at the same time, the spectator to closely examine the subtle shifts and transformations of the actress’ bodily presence and her facial expressions.   

Wash Away is a pleasant narrative that offers a fresh but familiar exploration of the subject’s fundamental desire for recognition/love and the problematic yet medicative function of consumption. Ikunosuke Okazaki’s second feature film, in short, proves his talent as screenwriter and as director.

Notes

Narra-note 1: There is shared element in Kana’s erotic work, as driven by her thirst for money, and in caretaking of her grandmother, where such thirst has no place: the washing of bodies in the bathroom.

Narra-note 2: Kana’s excessive gaming – the search for some shot of fleeting pleasure – is also an attempt to try to fill her subjective void.

Narra-note 3: AsSumire is not structured by a capitalistic logic, she can pose questions that invite Kana to bring her subject fleetingly to the fore into the conversation. Kumi’s enunciations, on the other hand, aim to wash any expression of subjectivity away and restore the imaginary dynamic of sharing pleasure.  

Kumi, moreover, is a victim of what we can call the host-trap. She consumes to ensure herself of her beloved host’s love, but this love is but a performance to keep her consuming.  

Narra-note 4: When Kana returns to continue the care for her grandmother, she does succeed to integrate the care for her grandmother within her subjective dynamic of spending money for superficial moments of pleasure. She enjoys herself with her dementing grandmother.  

Sound-note 1: The decorative wave-transitions are, in some cases, accompanied by sounds of soap-bubbles. In some cases, it is only the sound of bubbles that highlights the cut and the passing of time.

These transitions, of course, allude to Koyuki’s work as a soap-girl.

Cine-note 1: Okazaki also utilizessplit-screen moments in his composition.

Cine-note 2: The playful visual decorations eventually disappear from the visual fabric.