Liquidity and Stillness: The Sea and Shore and the Furo in Kore-eda Hirokazu’s Cinema

Abstract

This paper focuses on two recurring cinematic spaces of water: the sea and shore and the furo (Japanese bathroom) in the films of the contemporary Japanese auteur Kore-eda Hirokazu. 1 To develop a somatechnical perspective to address the dynamics between water, bodies and technologies, I deploy the notion of ‘the domestication of water’ ( Macauley 2005 ), denoting the process of how humans make a constant effort to maintain water in a state between liquidity and stillness. This lived interaction between humans and water can illuminate the leitmotif of kinship through the two cinematic spaces. In so doing, I firstly focus on the final shots of the sea and shore from Maborosi (1995) and Our Little Sister (2015). The mise-en-scène of the sea and the shore can create a vision of stillness on the surface but also a sense of liquidity underneath, illustrating that kinship is an ongoing process which can never be shaped but is constantly being re-shaped. Following the flow of water, I then observe the space of the furo in Still Walking (2008) and Like Father, Like Son (2013). By examining two bath routines, co-bathing with children and bathing-in-turn, I argue that the water in furo is by no means in a still state but rather is always circulating between different bodies. The circulation can not only help nurture the parent-child intimacy through co-bathing, but it also enables a theatrical stage on which to convey conflicts of kinship via bathing-in-turn. In conclusion, by further linking the representation of water and kinship in Kore-eda’s cinema, I propose the idea of liquid kinship: a lived process of making rather than a static state of being. The domestication of water between stillness and liquidity epitomises this liquid form of kinship.