DARK WATER

Yoshimi Matsubara, a young woman recently divorced, moves with her small daughter Ikuko into an apartment within a dilapidated apartment building. From the first days, Yoshimi understands that there is something threatening, sinister in that building: strange noises often come from the floor above, sometimes it seems to glimpse someone, an ambiguous presence in the darkness, and even the small Ikuko begins to behave strangely... What terrible secret do the walls of that building hide? What unsettling presence lurks threateningly? Those who thought that Hideo Nakata's talent had waned with the success of "Ringu" will have to think again: "Dark Water" is another small gem of suspense and fear. Film after film, Nakata is weaving a filmography characterized by a strong stylistic and thematic coherence, which makes him a director with a very precise identity. Once again adapted from a novel by Suzuki Kôji (already the author of "Ringu"), "Dark Water" is Nakata's best film after his greatest success. The collaboration between the writer and the director produces dark and frightening atmospheres again, supported, once again, by excellent performances by the cast (perfect Kuroki Hitomi in the role of the mother, a very human and fragile character). Once again, not a drop of blood, no miraculous effects but rather a slow pace; the result is, however, perhaps precisely because of these characteristics, even more frightening. In "Dark Water" we find elements already seen in the "Ringu" series: the presence of a ghost of a little girl (whose negative connotation is rather ambiguous), the final climax, the humid, bluish and rainy setting. If "Ringu" took place mostly during rainy days, on an island surrounded by a stormy sea, and inside a well full of water, in "Dark Water" - as the title suggests - water is even the central element of the film, a place of death, but above all of contact between life and the terrestrial world. Instead of the famous videotape of the Sadako series, there is an elevator as a "channel" that connects the terrestrial world with the afterlife. A deep difference with "Ringu" however: while the final sequences of the first episode of the cursed videotape saga had the taste of a threat, in "Dark Water" uneasiness gives way to a sense of melancholy, a deep sadness for an inevitable loss. Some flaws, this film by Nakata has them too: too many debts towards "Le Secret de Polichinelle" by Robert Zemeckis (again the presence of water, of bathtubs in which the two protagonists reflect), and an ending, as said, perhaps too melancholic and, in the end, not very "scary". However, "Dark Water", although it does not have the impact and genius of Ringu, is more than a "good horror": it is directed masterfully, it is coherent in every part, it has excellent photography and actors up to the task but, most importantly, in a couple of sequences it is really scary! Highly recommended.