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Dark Water July 10, 2005 |
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As I was walking out of Walter Salles’ “Dark Water”, a remake of a 2002 Japanese movie, I was trying to formulate how to start a review- 1, the film’s eerie atmosphere, 2, the importance of mother-daughter relationships, 3, a comparison with the original, and 4, the psychology of dripping water- when I hit the bathroom to find an overflowing urinal, and a floor covered in water. Imagine now, having just seen a horror film, that is drenched in grungy black water, water that not only serves as tormentor, but as metaphor for all encompassing worldly troubles, when you step into the cinema bathroom and are greeted with buckets of water gushing out of a malfunctioning urinal like some kind of twisted joking fountain. The story would be better had the film been more effective, and not squandered its potential, and its source material, on a few too many false endings and an inability to turn an already confusing story into something less incomprehensible, but still, as far as ironic twists go, especially on a routine outing to the movies on a boring Saturday afternoon, it’s a decent enough way, in lieu of other more carefully thought out ways, to open a review. The Salles film may not belong to The Ironic Discourse, and it definitely doesn’t have the kind of troubled laugh I had 20 minutes later thinking about the delicious weirdness of that cursed urinal, but in its own dark, schizophrenic ways, it left just enough of an impression that, had I been walking out of anything else, the flooded bathroom would have just been another malfunctioning public space, instead of a joltingly creepy, unintentional coincidence. But enough about toilets and water, lets get to the movie already, which has its share of toilets and water, indeed, but also its fair share of psychosis, confusion, pain, and gritty brownish-yellow coloring. Brazilian director Salles makes his American language debut with “Dark Water”, adapted from a novel by Koji Suzuki, who wrote “Ringu”, and from a 2002 film by Hideo Nakata, who also directed the slightly better Japanese “Ringu” adaptation, but not he American remake, yet the American remakes sequel. I can’t possibly see a sequel to “Dark Water” in the future, but if patterns follow, maybe Nakata will accept, since he was passed over for this film, in favor of another foreigner who usually sticks with surreal, yet plausible subject matter, not supernatural ghost stories. The irritating slow burn (as in too slow, not enough burn) of a story revolves around 30-year-old Dahlia (Jennifer Connelly), the single mother of 5-year-old Ceci (Ariel Gade), who is looking for a place outside of Manhattan to settle, getting ready for a potentially bitter divorce and custody trial. They find a concrete jungle on Roosevelt Island, disconnected from the city by Tram cable cars and the East River, for 900 dollars a month, but the place is hardly Buckingham Palace; it’s too small, the elevators run funny, the desk clerk is a creep, the manager is a shyster, the view is ugly, and the pesky leak in the corner of the ceiling won’t go away. All that, and little Ceci is talking to an imaginary friend named Natasha, who may or may not be the same Natasha neglected and missing from the abandoned apartment upstairs. The immense concrete structure, lit as if it were the waiting room of the damned, is the films main character; Jennifer Connelly is the star, for sure, but the building, with its unforgiving echoes, never ending drips, buried secrets, and urban disdain for beauty, is the ultimate terror playground for a story swimming in rent-controlled hell. To abandon those earlier review thesis in exchange for that ironic opener would be a cop out, because Salles’ film should in the least be discusses in a smart context, since it is more intelligent and professional than most run-of-the-mill horror films. First and foremost is the film’s dark atmosphere, which takes a cue from Nakata’s original by situating the two central figures in inescapable frames, boxed in by their increasingly dire, water logged living quarters. There is emptiness in the halls of this building, and Salles’ light dims to a frightened, deadening glow in the two dark eyed female characters, with Connelly’s usually gorgeous brown eyes made plump with terror and dark worry. The gloomy look may be the best aspects to the film, but it’s also where the director diverts most from the nightmare palate of Nakata’s cool, informal grays. The story sticks close to the original in its use of slowly intensifying water leaks and drips, beginning with a simple one-to-two drip a minute leak in the apartment ceiling and evolving to an all out torrent of sludgy black and oily muck, which, if I were to formulate a theory passed on psychology, would be a symbol of Dahlia’s loosening grip on her sanity, and how, like in the original, we’re not even sure if what’s happening is her reality, or the stressed out byproduct of a bad domestic situation. Finally, the most important aspect to understanding this creepy, frustrating film, and perhaps the one aspect that doesn’t hold up under intense scrutiny, is the fact that every long-term action in the film is a direct result of the psychological study of mothers and daughters. Not only do we have a central character who is protecting her beloved daughter from a custody trial and a tough divorce, but we have the back story of Dahlia’s stoned out waste of a mother, who abandoned her as a school girl, the story of the missing upstairs girl, Natasha, whose mother also left her for the bottle, and a potentially important casting move that features the same actress as both Natasha, and young Dahlia in flashbacks. The simple suggestion is that the mothers in “Dark Water” fail to protect their daughters from harm, and from the jerky men who seem to control their next actions, because of mental insecurities hampering their perceived role as homemakers, but the thesis I like better is that water, symbolizing the sacred bond of birth (amniotic fluid and so forth), while a harbinger of terror, is also a bridging motivator of protection and love, and when that love struggles, the water is all the more intense and terrifying. If the film fails to fully understand its own psychological possibilities it’s because it often dips into confusing ghost story antics, much like the Japanese film did as well, but through careful attention to moody detail, and enough symbolism to at least begin to formulate potential metaphysical theories on the all important aspects of mother-daughter bonding, by way of a drippy narrative, than “Dark Water” isn’t all that difficult to handle. Just check the plumbing in your bathroom before constructing your own thesis statement. by Adam Suraf “Dark Water” is playing at the Movie-Plex 59.
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