Dark Water

Nakata Hideo’s, Dark Water is based, like his influential horror hit The Ring, on the work of Suzuki Koji - the Japanese Stephen King. But instead of a techno gimmick, like ghosts emerging from the TV screen, the film relies on classic genre tropes to run its narrative motor, including a haunted old building, a little girl in jeopardy and parents badly in need of therapy. Think The Shining transposed to Tokyo and Mom instead of Dad on the verge of a meltdown. Instead of the a frosty Rocky Mountain winter, however, Nakata’s film unfolds during Japan’s rainy season. He puts unending streams of water on the screen while focusing on the teary turmoil of his unstable main character. The film could have easily devolved into supernatural soap opera, but Nakata keeps racheting up the tension, while slowly, relentlessly building the sodden atmospherics. Meanwhile Kuroki Hitomi, as the mother, may occasionally dissolve into hysterics, but never merely for show - she makes us believe in her character’s desperation, terror - and the worm of madness eating at her core. Yoshimi is in the process of getting a divorce from her abusive husband and fighting a messy custody battle over their only daughter, five-year-old Ikuko. Ordinarily in Japan, this would be a slam dunk for the mother, but Yoshimi has a history of mental instability, precipitated by a lonely, miserable childhood. Needing to demonstrate her independence to the family court, she moves into a new apartment with Ikuko and begins looking for a job. The apartment is a mold factory with a leaky ceiling and gives her the creeps. Ikuko begins seeing the shadowy figure of a little girl in a yellow raincoat, who seems to be beckoning. Then Yoshimi starts to see her too, out of the corner of her eye, while the spot on the ceiling drips and grows. Fear begin to steal into her soul. Dark Water has been bought by Pandemonium, an American production company, for a Hollywood remake. How, though, can an American director hope duplicate the uniquely Japanese atmospherics of this film on the screen? The incessant rain he can find in Seattle. But where is he going to get Tokyo’s rainy season slime?