The Ripples

Colour, 35mm
Japan, 2002, 112 min
Section: Another View

Synopsis

Inako Natsui is a quiet, modern girl working in a laboratory and living a closed and somewhat monotonous life in a small town. From time to time she goes to nearby to visit her lonely mother Wakayama who has been a widow for the past seventeen years. The girl’s relatives, particularly Aunt Sadako and Uncle Shuhei, the local mayor’s deputy, plan to introduce her to a suitable young man, but Inako has no real desire to get married. She is more interested in the hot mineral springs from where she takes her laboratory specimens. This all changes when she meets Mr Tamamiza, a young divorced man who´s been left with a little boy. Her relatives are decidedly against the match. The girl falls in love with the man without realising that she will encounter a painful conflict between her family and providence, as unexpoctelly as the spring which gushes out from the geological fold, driven to the surface by mysterious subterranean forces.

About the director

Naoki Nagao began his film career as a successful director of commercials, shooting over 3oo since l986. His feature debut Tokyo Holiday (Tokyo no kyujitsu) came in 1991. The poetic film Musashino – High-Voltage Towers (Tetto Musashino-sen) from 1997, in which he also participated as screenwriter and editor, tells the story of a young boy who becomes fascinated by his hometown’s high-voltage electricity pylons during the summer holidays. His latest film, The Ripples (Sazanami, 2002), also offers a melancholic story depicting the strange bond between the heroes and the natural environment which surrounds them.