A prologue set in the aftermath of a fictional eco-disaster, introduces the Sudo family living in a tranquil suburban neighborhood. Yoriko Sudo (Mariko Tsutsui) is a woman in her 50s, defined by her roles of wife of a salaryman (Osamu, played by Ken Mitsuishi), mother of a disaffected young man (Takuya, played by Hayato Isomura) and reluctant carer of Osamu's bedridden – but well able to fondle her – father. Water is scarce, as probably contaminated after the earthquake, and bottled water has become a precious good. One ordinary day, Yoriko calls everybody around the table at dinner time, but Osamu has mysteriously vanished. Fast forward few years and Yoriko has found a balanced and controlled lifestyle on her own. With the husband long gone, the father -in-law now deceased and her son working in another town,she enjoys her life as a single woman.She works in a supermarket by day and is deeply committed to an unconventional religious group known as the Ryokumei-kai, or the Green Life Water Society. She dedicates her time to prayer and intensive study and the whole house is full of bottles of pure (and expensive) holy water. Her garden – once adorned by colorful flowers – has now mutated into a dry Karesansui, Zen Garden, where she carefully rakes gravel every day, to represent ripples in water.where she carefully rakes gravel every day, to represent ripples in water.where she carefully rakes gravel every day, to represent ripples in water.She dedicates her time to prayer and intensive study and the whole house is full of bottles of pure (and expensive) holy water. Her garden – once adorned by colorful flowers – has now mutated into a dry Karesansui, Zen Garden, where she carefully rakes gravel every day, to represent ripples in water.where she carefully rakes gravel every day, to represent ripples in water.where she carefully rakes gravel every day, to represent ripples in water.She dedicates her time to prayer and intensive study and the whole house is full of bottles of pure (and expensive) holy water. Her garden – once adorned by colorful flowers – has now mutated into a dry Karesansui, Zen Garden, where she carefully rakes gravel every day, to represent ripples in water.where she carefully rakes gravel every day, to represent ripples in water.where she carefully rakes gravel every day, to represent ripples in water.

One day though, Osamu reappears; he is terminally ill and wishes – or so he declares – to spend his remaining time with his wife. Not surprisingly, Yoriko is shocked and rather disappointed to see him, but – feeling forced by this inescapable emotional blackmail – she allows him to stay in her house. His reappearance is akin to a stone thrown into the calm waters of her existence, and her whole well-built equilibrium is at risk of crumbling down. Little help comes her way from Mizuki (Hana Kino , who curiously resembles Masako Motai, a regular presence in many of Ogigami's films), a janitor she befriends at work whose down to earth and sarcastic manners give a bit of strength to Yoriko, but even Mizuki has her own share of accurately concealed troubles.
At the time of her previous movie “Riverside Mukolitta”'s release, I was happy to have the opportunity to interview director Ogigami, and on that occasion, she revealed the inspiration of Mukolitta's main plot came from a real story she had come across in a TV documentary. I wouldn't be surprised if even this film was inspired by several real-life tales of post-disaster. But regardless the truthfulness or not of my own personal speculation about the source material, “Ripples” remains an accurate and vivid observation of how we react to trauma and fear, and the way we try to stick together the pieces of a broken existence.


Water, and the symbolism that arises from its inherent qualities, like its clarity and its calm and still surface, is widely utilised in “Ripples”, in many occasions. The most apparent is linked to the cult-like religion which Yoriko is devoted to In Buddhism, water is used as a metaphor for the path to enlightenment and, just as purifying water, the Ryokumei-kai water aims to cleanse the mind of impurities, helped – of course – by generous money donations. But above all, as the devotees chant in their dancing routine, the holy water helps them to overcome fear, hence the popularity of these cult-like religions in the aftermath of tragic events. Yoriko has stashed under a dead calm surface her fear and rage for being left alone in the middle of the disaster, struggling to stay afloat as financial pressures and family misfortunes came to bear.However, this is a fragile and unstable composition, which is easily deranged by any unpredicted events.