Page 104 - Nightmare Japan Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema

Ghosts of the Present 91

increasing emergence of single parent families in late capitalist Japan, as
well as the transforming roles of women in the home and workplace. In a
gesture similar to the logic of eternal deferment with which Ringu’s
Reiko displaces Sadako’s technologically-mediated fury, Dark Water’s
Yoshimi elects to heal the wounds of the present by literally and
figuratively embracing the residue of a traumatic past in the form of
Mitsuko’s ghost. However, rather than affecting change through the
recognition of a traumatic past, as Reiko does, Yoshimi’s attempt to
placate Mitsuko’s lonely, mournful rage, disallows her from living
effectively in the present. For all practical purposes, Yoshimi transforms
herself into an entity as elusive, wraithlike, and insubstantial as the
spectral being she clutched to her chest in the lift a decade earlier. Thus,
Yoshimi’s sudden appearance – and sudden disappearance – within the
apartment she once shared with Ikuko mirrors Mitsuko’s phantasmic
presence. In this regard, Yoshimi differs radically from Ikuko, who is
very much alive and, as the film’s closing shot suggests, free from the
confining parameters of the crumbling edifice that stands as a bleak if
fading reminder of a past she has actively left behind in favor of a living
present and potentially bright future.

Image 8: Cycles of neglect: a young Yoshimi awaits her mother’s arrival in Nakata
Hideo’s Dark Water (Courtesy: beyondhollywood.com).