UNDERCURRENT Reviewed by Lisa Naiberg
Undercurrent
Rikiya Imaizumi has fashioned a leisurely paced, beautifully filmed and finely acted drama that offers a profound meditation on our perception of ourselves and others, and on identity, memory, suppressed guilt and grief.
The opening screen displays two definitions of the title word, overtly setting the stage for a psychological chronicle. Yet Undercurrent’s haunting poetic imagery, narrative surprises, and masterful camerawork − allowing viewers to feel “there” in the moment − result in a subtly layered musing on the complexity of human interaction.
Kanae, still reeling from her husband’s abrupt disappearance, acquiesces to her clients’ request to reopen her bathhouse. A young engineer named Hori arrives without notice, claiming to be a boiler technician sent by “the association,” and seeking a job with room and board. Kanae accepts his help, and the two forge an uneasy companionship.
Soon afterward, an old friend urges Kanae to engage the services of an eccentric private investigator, to inquire into the fate of the vanished Satoru. At her first meeting with him, the detective queries, “What does it mean to ‘understand’ someone?” Subsequent disclosures of his serve only to deepen the mystery.
Even the physical environment is portrayed as a repository of history and of secrets, and subject to unexpected change.
Moving and resonant, this is a work of art of great acuity and compassion.
In 2005 an agreement was made to end the 10-year civil war in Sudan. It took another 6 years for the actual succession to take effect in 2011, when the Southern Sudanese were forced out of Sudan to South Sudan. It is this period that forms the background to this epic drama.
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The drama highlights the ethnic, religious, and racial differences between the Northern Sudanese primarily Muslim population and the Southern Sudanese (Southerners) as it weaves its way through the personal story of the 2 families from each side.
The film begins with Mona (Eiman Yousif), a former singer married to Akram (Nazar Goma) who forced her to give up her singing career as part of the marriage. Akram detests the South Sudanese. Mona and Akram live in a secure gated area in a rich neighborhood. Their relationship is rocky, as Akram controls her lifestyle. Mona has fertility problems which trouble their marriage, a problem that cannot be rectified, but she does not disclose this to Akram, pretending to still try options, and lies about her desire to still sing. She secretly goes fully covered in a Burka, to clubs to listen to the music and groups with whom she performed.
On one of these trips to a club, just after violence flares up again in the city, she encounters a roadblock on her way home and is forced to take an alternate route through a poorer area. While driving slowly she is distracted and does not see a young boy playing in the road and hits him. The father runs out to confront her while the child is being picked up, and in a panic, Mona locks the car door and drives off. The boy’s father jumps after her on his motorcycle and chases her, managing to get through the gate to her building as she is entering. Akram hears a commotion and comes out with a rifle, but the father does not stop, and Akram fatally shoots him. Mona is devastated but does not tell Akram where she has been or what happened. Akram’s neighbor who is well connected with the police takes care of the body without reporting it and keeps the motorcycle.
This is where the real drama begins with many twists and turns. Mona full of guilt, continues to lie to Akram while deciding in her own way to make amends to the mother Julia (Siran Riak) and son Ager( Ger Duany) who fortunately was not badly hurt.. .