Ripples
波紋
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A wife who joined a cult after her husband vanished must face him when he returns — comedy as slow fury.
March 2011, days after the earthquake and the accident at the Fukushima nuclear plant. One morning Osamu Sudo walks out of the garden, leaving the hose running, and does not come back. His wife, Yoriko, is left to care for his bedridden father. Their son, Takuya, goes to university in Kyushu and stays away. Yoriko joins a new religion, the Ryokumeikai, drinks its blessed water, and turns her garden into a raked-sand stone garden.
About ten years later, her father-in-law dead, Osamu comes home as if nothing had happened. He has cancer and wants money from his father's estate for an unapproved drug. Yoriko tells him she had his father write a will leaving everything to her. At the supermarket where she works, a customer bullies the staff for discounts. Her one ease is swimming, then talking in the sauna, with Mizuki, a cleaner there, who has been through the menopause too, hears about Osamu, and urges her to stop holding back.
Takuya comes home with Tamami, who is deaf and whom he means to marry. Yoriko shows her Tokyo, then asks her to leave him. Tamami laughs: Takuya warned her his mother would say that. Yoriko takes her somewhere, and Tamami comes back subdued; the film does not say where. Takuya tells his mother that his father left because of her, not the radiation. In the end Yoriko pays for Osamu's treatment, and sits beside his drip murmuring the sums like a curse.
One day she comes home to find him collapsed in the stone garden, still breathing. The film does not show what she does. He dies. On the day of the funeral the bearers lose their footing on the stepping stones, the coffin tips, and Osamu's body rolls into the sand. Yoriko starts to laugh and cannot stop. In the rain, as Takuya leaves, he suggests she take up flamenco again. Alone, in her mourning kimono, she dances across the stone garden and out into the street.
Starring
Mariko Tsutsuias Yoriko Sudo
A supermarket worker who nursed her father-in-law alone, found calm in a new religion, and must take back the husband who abandoned her.
Yoriko Sudo’s story
Yoriko has made a life of what was left to her: a raked-sand garden, the blessed water of the Ryokumeikai, swims with Mizuki. When Osamu walks back in with cancer, she lets him stay and tells him his father left everything to her. Mizuki urges her to stop holding back. When a customer demands half price, saying the customer is God, she agrees, then asks him, if he is God, to save her husband from cancer. She asks Takuya's deaf partner, Tamami, to leave him. She pays for Osamu's treatment, murmuring the sums at his bedside. Finding him collapsed in the garden, still breathing, she hesitates; the film does not show what she does, and he dies. At the funeral she laughs until she cannot stop. Alone, in her mourning kimono, she dances out into the street.
Ken Mitsuishias Osamu Sudo
Yoriko's husband, who fled after the Fukushima accident and returns ten years later with cancer, wanting money.
Osamu Sudo’s story
On a March morning in 2011, with Fukushima on the television, Osamu stands in the garden holding the hose, then walks away for good, leaving his wife to nurse his bedridden father. About ten years later he comes home as though nothing had happened, as overbearing as ever, with cancer and a plan to pay for an unapproved drug with his father's money; but the will leaves everything to Yoriko. While she is out he searches the family altar for money. He eats her pickles contentedly and mocks her religion. She pays for his treatment. He collapses in her stone garden; he is still breathing when she finds him, the film does not show what she does, and he dies. At his funeral the coffin tips on the stepping stones and his body rolls into the sand.
Hayato Isomuraas Takuya Sudo
Their son, who left for university in Kyushu and comes home to announce that he will marry Tamami.
Erina Tsudaas Tamami Kawakami
Takuya's deaf partner, whom he means to marry and whom Yoriko asks to leave him.
Hana Kinoas Mizuki
A cleaner at Yoriko's supermarket who becomes her swimming companion and urges her to stop holding back.
Midoriko Kimuraas Masako Hashimoto
A leader of the Ryokumeikai, the new religion that has given Yoriko a sense of calm and worth.
Why it matters
Ripples is about the anger of a woman who was left holding everything. When disaster came, her husband ran; she stayed and nursed his father, and the film sets out, drily and often comically, what that cost her. It gathers problems its own description names outright: the long shadow of 2011, older people caring for older people, the pull of a new religion that offers calm and a sense of worth, and discrimination against disabled people. It does not flatter her. Yoriko's prejudice against her son's deaf partner is shown as plainly as her husband's selfishness, and the moment she stands over him in the garden is left for the audience to judge. Naoko Ogigami, who wrote and directed it, ends not with forgiveness but with laughter and a dance, and leaves open what a woman owes the man who abandoned her.