Photo: Misa Shimizu as Saeko in Shohei Imamura's Warm Water Under a Red Bridge
Warm Water Under a Red Bridge is Shohei Imamura's delirious ode to the female orgasm. For Imamura, the color red has become a starling indicator of passage between states of duress: In The Eel, a light inexplicably turns red and signals death, and in Warm Water Under a Red Bridge, a beet-red bridge comes to signify the gateway between sexual repression and freedom. Unemployed Yosuke (Koji Yakusho) watches Saeko (Misa Shimizu) sneak a piece of cheese into her purse at a local supermarket as water accumulates around her feet. She drops a dolphin-shaped earring into the puddle and leaves the store. Yosuke, recently divorced from his nagging wife, returns the trinket but becomes addicted to Saeko's sexual river. Her flow is the film's comic center and is inextricably linked to Imamura's notions of sexual shame and trust.
Warm Water Under a Red Bridge is Shohei Imamura's delirious ode to the female orgasm. For Imamura, the color red has become a starling indicator of passage between states of duress: In The Eel, a light inexplicably turns red and signals death, and in Warm Water Under a Red Bridge, a beet-red bridge comes to signify the gateway between sexual repression and freedom. Unemployed Yosuke (Koji Yakusho) watches Saeko (Misa Shimizu) sneak a piece of cheese into her purse at a local supermarket as water accumulates around her feet. She drops a dolphin-shaped earring into the puddle and leaves the store. Yosuke, recently divorced from his nagging wife, returns the trinket but becomes addicted to Saeko's sexual river. Her flow is the film's comic center and is inextricably linked to Imamura's notions of sexual shame and trust.
