August in the Water
Directed by Gakuryu Ishii (1995)
Review by Lachlan Evans
August in the Water (Mizu no naka no hachigatsu) is a 1995 film written and directed by Gakuryu Ishii formerly known as Sogo Ishii (1957-) which follows a series of mysterious events all orbiting one schoolgirl in Fukuoka, star diver Izumi. Ishii’s script is overflowing with strange and magical story beats: an illness sweeping the city which turns people to stone, two meteorites falling in the nearby mountains simultaneously, shamanistic prophecies, psychic communication, ancient rituals under a full moon, and spirits of the dead appearing to old friends. The enigmatic mysteries of the film are articulated with a deeply spiritual and meditative mode of filmmaking, using meticulously composed shots and camera movements which exude effortless control of the medium of cinema. The tone achieved by August in the Water is quite unlike that of any other film, and more than anything, it immerses you completely in the film’s own world. Ishii crafts an experience which succeeds in one supreme way: atmosphere.
Ishii’s film builds an atmosphere which is beautiful yet uncanny, and this can be best demonstrated by an oxymoron at the beginning of the film. Fukuoka is baking in the August heat; we see shots of fans cooling people down, radio announcements warning about water shortages, characters describing “the smell of water evaporating”. Yet, the characters are surrounded by enormous abundances of water. Izumi takes part in a diving competition which fills competition-sized pools, and other characters attend a water throwing festival in which crowds of people are soaked. This marvellous abundance of water in the midst of a drought seems almost a kind of mirage, the juxtaposition of burning, dry concrete and oases of chlorinated pool water seems like a hallucinatory dream. This is paired with slow, austere camera shots to produce a hypnotic effect which lulls the viewer into a calm serenity. The opening shot is a great example of this. We watch a mesmerising sequence with abstracted shots of light rippling through water and zoom out to find that we are watching the habitat of a dolphin.
The presence of dolphins in the film injects further magic into the story, as these graceful marine mammals also live within this dehydrated concrete landscape. The unusual beauty of the aquatic mammals in such a place mirrors how Izumi is presented as a character. After awaking from a coma, students tell rumours of Izumi being able to communicate with dolphins and plants, with this being one example of the strong motif of spiritualism in the film. Izumi appears to be entangled not only with animals, but with the universe on a cosmological scale. She seems to traverse the human, animal, and cosmic worlds with her magic tendencies, sharing her elemental affinity for water with dolphins as well as the earth itself. She talks about attaining an enlightened perception of herself and the world on a subatomic level and, after her diving accident, she acts more aloof, seemingly able to understand and predict the unusual forces at play in the universe.
This surreal lullaby of a film is accented perfectly by Onogawa Hiroyuki’s dreamy score. Soft vibrations comprise the much of the low end of the music, sounding like the rumbling of waves heard from deep underwater. Gorgeous synths breathe through the score at times, as well as the occasional high-pitched twinkling of chimes and deep, resonant marimba notes. The ambient sounds dispersed throughout the film feel otherworldly, yet beautifully peaceful. It is hard not to conjure visual images of water when listening to the music alone, as it sonically mimics the experience of being underwater and the dripping, flowing, and undulating sounds of water itself.
It is hard to put into words just how mesmerising August in the Water is to watch, and I believe this is in part down to how richly Ishii is able to convey a feeling with his direction. Something about the soft, dreamlike cinematography and the hypnotic score defies definition, and this lends itself to a story about mysteries that we do not fully understand. The film slowly reveals its secrets in an enchanting manner through the strange life of Izumi, and by the final scene Ishii is able to conjure powerful emotion, even if the audience aren’t able to fully explain the origins of these feelings. It is as if there is a deep emotional force to the film that resonates through the ebb and flow of water: distant, hard to detect or understandbut powerful.