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From: Marker
Category: Films
Date: 30 July 2003
If you don't catch it now, you can always watch the lo-cal remake that they're sure to make soon because it's by the same director as The Ring. Its a bit slow and quite mellow for a horror fim. The basic themes are the problems of damp and single mothership. The story despite its strong motif of water and the maternal instinct seems to have no higher level of meaning than weirdness. More involving than the divorce plot and ghosts are the mannerisms and mores of Japanese society, a silly example being that even when the mother is rushing into the apartment to save her daughter she pauses to take off her shoes, more serious is the mother's exaggerated subservience and nervousness with men. The cutesy scenes of mother/daughter fun don't translate well.But the cityscape has a pretty bleakneess, and the twin threats of the superanatural and the father's attempt to win custody of the daughter combine well to create a building sense of foreboding and the mother's world falling apart.
I would be interested to read a coherent interpretation of the film. But maybe that's the point.
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