A Story Written on Water

Yoshida’s first independent production after his break with production company Shochiku forced him out of the studio to film on location. A Story Written on Water is also the first instalment of six stylistically dazzling ‘anti-melodramas’, all starring Okada Mariko and challenging the conventions of the Japanese melodrama. In this film based on a story by Ishizaka Yojiro he confronts the Japanese patriarchal family structure, which he considers a direct reflection of the Japanese state structure headed by the father figure of the emperor. As an antithesis he focuses on the mother-child relationship, which is uniquely free from these institutionalised bonds of power. This film also introduces the symbols of water and the parasol as female emblems that almost instinctively resist male suppression. The strong erotic compulsion of Yoshida’s female protagonists invariably makes them reject – almost unconsciously – the patriarchal family structure and the inherent suffering of womanhood, the two mainstays of Japanese melodrama.

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