A Story Written with Water (1965)

Directed by Kiju Yoshida (Eros + Massacre), one of the leading lights of the Japanese New Wave, broke with studio filmmaking for A STORY WRITTEN WITH WATER, his first independent production and the start of his signature style.

Telling the story of a man torn between his fiancee and the familial bond of his mother, Yoshida creates a dazzling narrative that uses flashbacks to tell its story of obsession and desire. With the luminous Mariko Okada as the mother, the celebrated star of such masterpieces as Floating Clouds and Late Autumn, she would become Yoshida’s muse across a series of the director’s ‘anti-melodramas’. Yoshida's singular visual flair and revolutionary exploration of film codes place him as one of the finest Japanese filmmakers of the postwar period.

Region: B

Special Features:

• High-Definition digital transfer
• Uncompressed mono PCM audio
• Archival interview with director Kiju Yoshida (2008)
• New interview with star Mariko Okada (2023)
• Interview with scholar Jennifer Coates, author of Making Icons: Repetition and the Female Image in Japanese Cinema, 1945-1964 (2023, 22 mins)
• Trailer
• Newly translated English subtitles
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork
• Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by scholar and author Alexander Jacoby
• Single pressing of 3000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings