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The Asian Media & Mass Communication Conference 2010 Osaka, Japan
3. Findings and Comments
3.1 The Plot of Dark Water
The film is the Hollywood adaptation of “Honogurai Mizu No Soko Kara” by Hideo
Nakata. Firstly, we see that this little girl called Dahlia as grown-up and waiting in a room for
an appointment. After she divorced from her husband, Dahlia moves into Menhattan to get
her daughter Ceci’s custody and to start a new life. Ceci tells about a forgotten girl. She tells
that her imaginary friend told her that Natasha’s mother forgot her just as Dahlia’s mother
forgot Dahlia. The ghost of Natasha wants Dahlia’ to stay with her forever and tries to kill
Ceci by drowning her in the wash basin and Dahlia sacrifices herself for her daughter. Ceci is
rescued and Dahlia dies. Dahlia was now with abandoned Natasha. Three weeks after her
mother’s death, Ceci who goes to the apartment block with her father meets her mother’s
ghost in the lift.
3. 2. The Plot of Araf
While Eda was a dancer, sleeps with a married business man and get pregnant.And she get
rid of her baby with abortion. Three years later, she marries with Cenk who she met during
academy years. The happiness of the young couple is spoiled when mysterious event
happened in the following months her pregnancy. The ghost of the baby who she aborted
years ago hounds her. With the influence of the events she experiences, Eda starts to give
harm to herself and worries people around her. Eda tries to awake from this clamping down
nightmare and young couple deals with this problem to the end of the film. Eda who
constantly sees the ghost of her child starts to go mad gradually. At the end of the film, toy
telephone Eda bought for her baby to be born rings and the films end with Eda’s saying
“Don’t wait for me. From now on I am with my daughter”. Eda died and went to live with her
daughter.
3.3. The Similarities Between The Narration Structures Of The Two Films:
The very first point common in the two films is the questioning of the role of motherhood.
While Ryan and Kellner are talking about the influence feminist movement which changed
American cultural life in the 1970s and 1980s, they point out that the representation of woman
in the cinema was intended to justify patriarchal structure. In the 1970s, outstanding in the
representation of woman was that male directors told the stories about women who had to
make a choice between carrier and marriage. This representation of women in cinema was
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