After parting ways with Shochiku Studios, the company where he got his start, director Kiju Yoshida (aka Yoshishige Yoshida) struck out on his own as an independent producer/director with this edgy "anti-melodrama." Shizuo Matsutani (Yasunori Irikawa) is a young man who has long had an unusually close and emotionally intimate relationship with his mother Shizuka (Mariko Okada). Shizuka divorced her husband when Shizuo was young, and she's grown into a beautiful, confident and free-spirited woman. However, the balance of the family falls into disarray when Shizuka takes on a new boyfriend -- the father of a young woman Shizuo hopes to marry. Mizu De Kakareta Monogatari (aka A Story Written On Water) was the first of six independent "anti-melodramas" Yoshida would make with leading lady Mariko Okada, who was also his wife.
by Mark Deming
synopsis
