Buffalo Boy

Mizoguchi-like in its tragedy. It's pretty heavy-handed, but for a directorial debut, not bad. The whole water metaphor is a bit played out, but the jumps in time were interesting, the main character sympathetic (even when he's a bastard) and the photography is lovely. The actors are all amateurs and it shows, but for the most part they do okay. Not the most memorable film, but a thoughtful look at families being broken apart by tragic circumstance and new families arising from human kindness.