The use of 'water' archetype in cinema: The case of Japanese horror cinema after year 2000

The vital importance of water, which is one of the primary elements for the continuation of life in the world, has caused it to be represented in many fields such as mythology, religion, literature, psychology and cinema. The archetypes, which Carl Gustav Jung, one of the active names of the psychology discipline, stated as the product of collective memory, were adapted to the journey of the character in the cinema, and the concept of archetype was used in the expression of both good and bad situations. Horror cinema, which emerged with the genre classification and is one of the most popular genres, has often benefited from archetypes in the collective memory to create an atmosphere of tension and horror. In this context, the aim of the thesis is to examine the use of the water archetype in cinema through Japanese horror cinema, which has the feature of using its own collective memory. First of all, Carl Gustav Jung's concept of archetype was emphasized, then how the water archetype was represented in mythology, religion and cinema was examined. Three sample films of Japanese horror cinema, which interpret the horror genre in a unique way by adding their culture and beliefs to the cinema, were examined by content analysis method, and the destructive and threatening features of the water archetype in these films, as well as the direction of being a source of death, were investigated.