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Backwater

Backwater

2013 · 102 min · JA · 6.1 (27 votes)
Dir. Shinji Aoyama · Starring Masaki Suda, Misaki Kinoshita, Yukiko Shinohara, Ken Mitsuishi, Yuko Tanaka, Ittoku Kishibe · Music Isao Yamada
Drama

Toma lives in a small riverside town with his brutish father and his father's girlfriend. Witnessing his father's predilections for abuse, Toma becomes anxious that he will have inherited those urges.

VIBE

A deeply unsettling and melancholic slow-burn, this film plunges into the bleak heart of familial dysfunction and inherited trauma. It's a gritty, tense character study, exploring the heavy weight of a troubled past and the anxious struggle for self-identity amidst a suffocating environment, leaving a lingering, somber impression.

bleakunsettlinggrittymelancholictenseslow-burngritty realismintimate character studystark dramacycle of abuseinherited traumafamilial dysfunctionself-loathingredemption
small townabusive fatherredemptiondysfunctional familysexual violencedomestic violenceself-loathingabuseshōwa era (1926-89)
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