Movie Trailer: Dark Water (2005)

Television and Cinema Verities: Dark Water Edition

"I feel it's less a kind of just visceral, more kind of unsettling, more emotionally provocative. That's my feeling about it. I think it's subtler, but still scary. It ha a kind of moral, get under your skin scary. More thought-provoking. That's really because of the script and Walter and his - I think he felt like with supernatural scenes he wanted to anchor the film in reality."

- Jennifer Connelly reflects on the differences and similarities between The Ring (2002), The Grudge (2004) and Dark Water (2005). From an interview with Devin Faraci in Chud.com.(June 9, 2005).

Movie Trailer: Pulse (2006)

Movie Trailer: The Grudge (2004)

CULT MOVIE REVIEW: Shikoku (1999)

"Do a person's feelings...have to die with them?"

- Sayori, in Shikoku (1999)

This Japanese film by director Shunichi Nagasaki is one of the few post-Ringu horrors that hasn't yet been remade and repackaged in America.

And that's probably a good thing, since Shikoku doesn't trade so much on shocks and suspense as it does powerful human emotions like...love, loneliness and longing. Make no mistake, Shikoku is a frightening genre film in many ways; but it focuses very intently (and grimly) on the meaning of death; and the things that death can take away from those left behind; those still living.

Shikoku depicts the tale of lovely, timid Hinako (Natsukara Yui), a girl who moved away from the island of Shikoku as a child, leaving behind two best friends: a boy named Fumiya (Tsutsui Michitaka), and the object of his affections, Sayori (Kuriyama Chiyaki), a girl with extraordinary powers as a spiritual medium. Like all women in the Hiura family, Sayori is able to let the dead speak through her, and in one horrifying session, a boy inhabits the young girl and tells his grieving parents "I want to get out of here." "Here" being a reference to the Land of the Dead.

Hinako returns to Shikoku as an adult, only to learn that Sayori drowned some years earlier...at the age of sixteen. Fumiya has never been the same since her death, and nor has Sayori's obsessed mother, the last in a long line of priestesses serving on the island. In fact, Sayori's grieving mother has undertaken a strange quest: she is visiting all 88 shrines on the island sixteen times, but in the "reverse" order of the ritual. As Hinako and Fumiya soon discover (from an unpublished, secret book called The Ancient History of Shikoku...), this backwards pilgrimage can transform the island into the Land of the Dead. In fact, in a forested valley, there may be a cave leading to "Yomi," the underworld.

Hinako and Fumiya grow intimate as they learn more about the opening of the doorway to the dead; and there's an amazing scene in the second act in which Fumiya describes to Hinako the depth of his love for Sayori, even though she is long gone. Will he ever really love anyone else? Is he "ruined," because of his early loss? Can he love Hinako the same way that he loves Sayori? This scene is filled with deep, honest emotions, yet never mawkish. It's restrained, and yet the words are heart-wrenching and heart-felt. American movies don't often let characters talk this way; and if they do, it seems corny, or forced. But after this fascinating scene, we realize that Shikoku is a love triangle. Though one point of the triangle is dead and gone, in some senses she still wields the most power.

And then, inevitably, the doorway to the Land of the Dead opens, and Fumiya makes a fateful choice between the living and the dead. His selection is shocking, but right given his character's situation and the undying power of love.

Shikoku eschews flashy pyrotechnics and culminates with a surprise: a long, in-depth conversation between a dead girl, Sayori, and the two friends she left behind on this mortal coil. She's sort of delusional in her "dead state." Sayori believes that she and Fumiya can still have children and carry on the family line. But of course, that's impossible. And Sayori -- very much like the resurrected individuals of Pet Sematary (1989) -- has only one gift remaining that she can endow upon the mortal friends. Death.

There's a real, heart-felt, human dimension to Shikoku that remains incredibly appealing and intriguing. Death brings out different instincts in people. Some deny it. Some grieve it. And some people just categorically refuse to accept death. But, there are consequences, we are told, to changing the natural order of things, and some of those consequences play out in the film.

To provide a crude comparison, Shikoku is like Ghost (1990) without all the sentimental New Age crap. Unlike Ghost, this film doesn't aim to satisfy us merely with the belief that "we take the love with us" to the after life. Instead it asks questions about regret and fate. It pauses long enough for the dead to ask questions of the living. Like "Why did I have to be the one who never got to grow up?"

These are the questions of our mortal existence; of human tragedy, and Shikoku dwells on them. It cannot, however, answer these questions since the great unknown must remain...unknown. But the film is atmospheric and dread-filled because it gazes at the mystery of the beyond; at one intersection of the land of the living and the land of the dead.

Shikoku is a beautifully-realized horror film. At times, a hand-held camera makes us actually feel a part of the land. This is especially so in the case of the river where Hinako almost dies; and where Sayori drowns. These shots are almost always filmed from water level, so it's as though we're up to our necks in it; drowning too. In other scenes, after Sayori has returned from the dead (arising through a small pool of water...), the water always seems to be reflecting upon her person; whether she is actually in it or not. Shunichi Nagasaki is also crafty in the way he shoots the Sayori specter: He shows her eyes and face very infrequently; Sayori seems ever-present...but distant to us. Often, she is turned away with her back to the camera; or appears on her knees (below camera level), preserving the mystery of a returnee from the grave. One line in the film tells the audience that "the newly dead come stand by your bed," and a shiver-invoking scene puts that line to the test.

At the end of Shikoku, Hinako is informed that she will be the one "who lives." She thus leaves Shikoku, gazing back at the mountain which might just be the gateway to another world.

But after everything Shikoku shows us and reveals to us, it's not relief the audience feels at her survival. On the contrary, it feels as though Hinako is the one who has been left behind. Her demons, like Fumiya's, will continue to haunt her. Especially if love survives the grave.

MOVIE REVIEW: Dark Water (2005)

This is yet another Americanized remake of a Japanese horror film; in the spirit of The Ring, The Grudge and Pulse (which I reviewed on the blog last week). Like those remakes, Dark Water is also rated PG-13; which - if you'll forgive the expression, means "watered" down horror.

Yet Dark Water, which stars Jennifer Connelly as Dahlia Williams, is, perhaps a notch or two better than the average genre remake (it's certainly better than the worst of this lot, which for my money is the unnecessary sequel, Ring 2). Tallying it all up, I enjoyed Dark Water more than the flawed Pulse, for instance, if not as much as The Ring. It's not jump-out-of-your-seat scary in the sense you may expect, however. The film's power is not necessarily in the "jolts" or "shocks" but rather in the oblique little touches, and the world of perpetual rainfall and urban isolation it confidently and adroitly forges. The characters are all compelling too, and in general, they speak with distinction and verisimilitude. You don't find those qualities in horror films every day, so they're worth mentioning.

The film's greatest asset? Dark Water boasts a lugubrious mood, what a friend of mine ters "an atmosphere of dread." In other words, the whole enterprise feels ominous and unsettling and vaguely surreal. I guess if you're not that into nuances however, I could see how someone might rate it as "boring" rather than "moody." The film requires you bring a degree of patience along with your popcorn and soda.

Like The Ring - again - Dark Water is the story of a single Mom (Connelly) and her "haunted' child, in this case a little girl named Cecilia or Ceci, for short. The haunting comes about under the auspices of another "wronged" child (like The Grudge and The Ring...), also a little girl with long black hair. In this case it is a little specter named Natasha, who happens to haunt a shitty apartment building in New York. The first time you see a water tower on the roof of the film's central location, that squalid apartment building on Roosevelt Island, you'll be able to guess every detail of the story. At least I did. That's clearly to the film's detriment.

The film suffers from several narrative implausibilities too. The first is that Jennifer Connelly plays a recent divorcee. Her husband cheated on her, and frankly I have a hard time believing any guy in the universe would cheat on Jennifer Connelly. Go ahead, inform me, please, what out-of-this-world mistress would possibly be preferable to Jennifer Connelly? The second implausibility is that a conscientious mother, like Dahlia, would continuously permit her precious, psychologically fragile daughter Ceci sleep under a nasty ceiling leak every night. One that oozes black water and threatens to explode all the time. Jeez, just move the bed, would you?

But whatever. Those are actually somewhat minor complaints. What the film accomplishes, it accomplishes very well, and that's a good thing. The best aspect of the film involves the sequence which establishes the geography of the yucky apartment building, a would-be utopia built in 1976 and which now is Exhibit A of contemporary urban blight. The color palette of the film is a sort of puke gray-green, and every corner of this building looks authentically sleazy. The elevator is a nightmare (and there's a scary scene as odd denizens hurtle briefly into view while it moves from floor to floor...), and don't get me started on the laundry room in the basement. Jeez.

But instead of merely recording for us the details of the nasty apartment, I truly enjoyed how the film takes the time and energy to establish the upbeat but utterly immoral character of the apartment landlord/manager, played by the incomparable John C. Reilly. He gives Dahlia and Ceci their first peek at the apartment, and it's a great scene because of his performance. He euphemistically terms a fold-down kitchen table a "country kitchen!" and raves about the "dual use" space; meaning that the bedroom and the living room are actually one in the same. And then he patronizingly talks to Ceci in a kind of sing-songy voice that's really grating. Yet his tour of the apartment is practically mesmerizing. In turns it's creepy, amusing, and infuriating. Recommendation to filmmakers: if you have an exposition-heavy sequence, get John C. Reilly to vet it.

The film's second strength is Connelly herself, playing a tragic golden-heart; a lost soul who was abandoned by her mother at a young age (which we see in an unnecessary flashback...); an event she shares in common with Natasha, the apartment ghost and Ceci's new not-so-invisible friend. Accordingly, much of this film involves an understanding of what it means to be a good parent. What things to give up, what things to fight for. What things to sacrifice. Dahlia's character arc is touching - heartbreaking even - and Connelly is quite good in a meaty, affecting part.

And did I mention Tim Roth in the quirky role of an eccentric lawyer who works out of his car instead of an office? He also elevates the familiar material to a higher-than-expected plateau. I imagine good actors like John C. Reilly, Jennifer Connelly, Tim Roth, and Pete Postelthwaite (playing a gruff handyman...) were attracted to the script because of these unique, well-drawn characters, all of whom possess individual voices. They aren't cookie-cutter roles like you might expect.

So Dark Water is well-cast and never less-than-gorgeously shot. My biggest reservation about the film is just that the premise is entirely and tiresomely predictable. We've been down this rainy alley before, many times in fact, and no matter how desperate Dahlia is, I just don't buy that she would remain in an apartment with a giant leak in the ceiling. I admire the performances in the film; I respect that it isn't exploitative. I like the "dark mood" and note with appreciation how the leitmotif of water recurs. I just wouldn't recommend you watch Dark Water unless you're wide awake, because - depending on point of view - it's either hypnotic or sleep inducing.

I'm feeling generous today. I'll say it's hypnotic. Ask me again tomorrow, however, and my answer might be that the film is a little drawn out. Like (Japanese...) water torture.