A deep dive into Seagrass reveals the intergenerational trauma that lingers within Japanese-Canadian communities
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Poster for Seagrass (DIR. Meredith Hama-Brown, 2023)
There’s something quite eerie about the image of seagrass floating in the darkness of the deep ocean. Imagine yourself drifting in the middle of open water as it moves beneath you, unbeknownst to when it will reach out to graze your bare skin. It’s a haunting image, and it’s one that lingers.
Japanese-Canadian director Meredith Hama-Brown captures this haunting sensation in her debut feature titled Seagrass. Following the story of a biracial family whose week-long retreat on the Pacific coast eventually leads to their tragic downfall, Hama-Brown explores the intergenerational trauma that persists in Japanese-Canadian communities, following the Japanese internment in World War II.
I had the opportunity to speak to Hama-Brown in an interview where she shared her inspiration behind Seagrass, her first venture away from short films: “A lot of stories centred around Japanese-Canadian identity look at the incarceration [of internment] itself,” she said, “but there are few stories that look into the intergenerational trauma caused by it … So many communities were displaced, never able to return to their [homes],” and the aftermath includes a devastating loss of language, culture and history that could have been passed down and preserved.
This feeling of loss is a burden that is carried by main protagonist Judith, a Japanese-Canadian woman who is mourning the death of her mother, while also going through troubles in her marriage. In hopes of repairing her relationship with her husband Steve, she brings him along with her two daughters to an island retreat. The couple participates in group therapy while the children are left to explore the island on their own.
Seagrass (DIR. Meredith Hama-Brown, 2023)
It is made clear that Judith’s grief goes beyond physical loss; she must also grapple with losing her connection to her Japanese roots and culture. This is most materialised by Judith’s attachment to a knitted blanket that she takes with her to the retreat, which we come to find out was made by her mother.
Early in the film, we see Judith with her youngest daughter Emmy, admiring all the different colours stitched into the blanket. “Grandma used to unravel all of the old sweaters in the house to use the wool to make blankets,” Judith tells Emmy, as they sit together and reminisce. At first, it’s a heartfelt moment between the two as a peaceful silence fills the scene. However, this sense of comfort takes a turn when Emmy’s curiosity about her grandmother grows. She asks, “Did Grandma like making blankets?” There’s a drawn out pause, to which we come to realise that Judith doesn’t know the answer: “Well, I don’t know if she liked it,” she says, “but she had to do it.”
The once soothing silence in the scene shifts into discomfort as Judith sits with the realisation that she never quite knew her own mother, and will never have the chance to. As Emmy continues to ask questions — “what did Grandma like to do?” — Judith continues to fall short in providing answers, and we, the audience, also find ourselves sitting in the discomfort of her loss.
The significance of the knitted blanket is revisited at a later scene, revealing fundamental cracks in Judith’s marriage — mainly, Steve’s inability to recognise and empathise with the weight of her grief.
Seagrass (DIR. Meredith Hama-Brown, 2023)
When Judith recalls a memory of bathing in the same pool of water as her father, a common part of Japanese culture, Steve (a white Canadian with no Japanese background) ridicules her for it. Judith communicates the racism she feels in his comments, only for Steve to respond with “I’m married to you, so why would I be a racist?” This interaction is one of the few in the films that illustrate the lack of understanding Steve has in navigating their cultural differences. However, tensions rise when the argument escalates into Steve accidentally spilling red wine on Judith’s beloved blanket. Judith, unable to verbalise the greater weight of this incident in the moment, lets out an aching gasp. The scene ends with her attempting to rinse off the red marks that have bled into the wool of the blanket, vigorously scrubbing it, until she realizes that there’s no use. It is to remain forever stained.
“I knew I wanted to make something centred around discomfort,” Hama-Brown said; and the way she draws out stillness and uses long takes certainly nurtures the deeply growing sense of tension and unease in these moments. Hama-Brown purposefully hovers a little too long in each scene, amplifying the depth of the emotions felt by Judith as grief echoes around her.
Perhaps what is most evocative and haunting, however, is a ghostly presence that appears to lurk over the characters throughout the film.
Seagrass (DIR. Meredith Hama-Brown, 2023)
In the beginning, Emmy finds a mysterious dark cave that is said to have the magical ability to reconnect the living with those who have passed away. Immersed in her own grief, she becomes incredibly fixated on the idea that this may allow her to communicate with her grandmother again. From then on, Emmy finds herself haunted by this ghostly presence; its eeriness is intensified by camera shots that appear to float and twist above and around her and by Hama-Brown’s use of the imagery at unexpected times throughout the film.
As we settle into seemingly solemn or lighthearted moments between the family, we find that our sense of comfort is short-lived. Slow moving shots that appear to lurk and watch over the characters immediately follow. This, paired with unsettling sounds scored masterfully by Oscar Vargas, hints that something (or someone) else is present in the room. It’s a chilling feeling that leaves us with a sense of unease that lingers.
Seagrass (DIR. Meredith Hama-Brown, 2023)
It’s apparent that the cave is the source of the spiritual manifestation of Judith’s mother, but the subtlety of its significance lies in how this ghostly presence captures the haunting effects of grief. “[The cave] represents all of the things in our lives we don’t understand,” Hama-Brown shared, “the unanswered questions, the things the family is haunted with, [and] the darkness crowding them.”
Emmy’s fixation with the cave is seemingly met with tragedy. At the end of the film, she finds herself determined to follow her grandmother’s ghost. As the waves crash heavily against the rocky shores, Emmy dives into the deep water to find out what lurks within the cave. Her family rushes after her to stop her, but they are too late.
Does Emmy survive? It’s a question that Hama-Brown leaves unanswered with intention. Much like the lingering effects of trauma within Asian-Canadian communities, a lot of us whose families have been affected by tragedy are burdened by unanswered questions pertaining to our identity. While these tragedies are horrific on their own, Seagrass evokes a similar sense of horror in the trauma that persists within our communities. Hama-Brown shows that the experience of trauma and grief is not one that is simply experienced then forgotten. Rather, it’s one that lives and crawls beneath your skin, giving no warning to when it chooses to resurface.
Kim Regala (she/they) is a Filipino-Canadian creative based in so-called Vancouver, B.C. As someone with deep ties to various intersecting communities, they are drawn to artistic practices, such as writing, sound, and photography, to document space and explore stories around liminal identities. You can connect with them through their Instagram at @kregala_.
