It is a sad irony that the Fukushima nucleardisaster should occur in the same year that Noriaki Tsuchimoto’s groundbreakingdocumentary Minamata: The Victims and Their World (水俣 患者さんとその世界/Minamata: Kanja-san to sonosekai, 1971) got its first release on DVD with English subtitles. For the narrative of corporations and politiciansputting financial gain ahead of risks to public health and safety is not a newone in Japan. History is repeatingitself yet again – only the players and the type of poison have changed.
Minamata: The Victims and Their World isthe first in a series of documentaries that Tsuchimoto made documenting theplight of the victims of Minamata disease, their families, and their fight for redress. Minamata disease takes its name from the cityin Kumamoto prefecture where the disease was identified in 1956. The disease is a neurological syndrome causedby severe mercury poisoning. The localchemical factory run by the Chisso Corporation polluted Minamata Bay and theShiranui Sea with industrial waste water containing the highly poisonouschemical compound methylmercury between 1932 and 1968.
Noriaki Tshuchimoto’s documentary openswith a series of title cards that quietly lay out the bare facts of how thepeople of Minamata came to be poisoned by mercury. The documentary then shifts its focus fromthe facts and figures to the stories of the victims and their families. Fishermen talk of how they knew something waswrong when fish began behaving strangely in the sea and local cats that ate thefish started going insane. Familymembers share the agonies endured by their loved ones before they died of thedisease. Doctors, teachers, and physiotherapists compare and contrast the illness to other known conditions such as cerebral palsy. The most chilling legacy is thestories of the children with congenital Minamata disease, who were poisonedwhile in the womb. Their physical and mental challenges are so great that there is little hope for rehabilitation.
The interviews are paced throughout thefilm like the ebb and flow of the tide. Emotionally harrowing personal testimonies are book-ended by quietsequences that give the spectator a moment to pause and reflect. These quiet moments are often montages thatcapture the natural beauty of the landscape and the sea of the region. With each new story of pain and loss, thetension slowly builds until the film’s dramatic climax in which the victims andtheir families go to the Chisso biannual shareholders meeting to confront thecompany president and demand that he publicly take responsibility for hiscompany’s crimes against humanity and the environment.
The mainstream documentary style in Japan –even today – is one in which an authoritative, voice-of-god narrator tells thespectator how to interpret the images they are being shown. As authority figures had betrayed the peopleof Minamata, Tsuchimoto wisely decided to foreground the voices and faces ofthe victims themselves in this documentary. According to Sachiko Mizuno in the supplementary material for the DVDrelease, the victims had resisted the efforts of television documentarycrew because of their deeply held suspicions about the media (p.6) It becomesapparent while watching the documentary that Tsuchimoto has won over the peoplewith his friendly, sincere manner. He occasionallyappears in the film, usually partly or wholly off-frame, holding a microphonein his hand and gently coaxing his subjects to talk to him.
The film is particularly interesting forits use of sound. The lack of synch betweenthe image and the soundtrack is initially distracting. Sound was a big problem for low budgetdocumentary filmmakers of the day as it was recorded separately from theimage. The asynchronous sound providedTsuchimoto with the opportunity to play with the soundtrack in innovativeways. As his subjects tell us theirstories, we are treated to montages of images of the dead, their families, andtheir homes. The asynchronicity forces us to listen more closely to the words and to study the face of the speaker more carefully. Although each family hastheir own individual tale of suffering and loss to tell, taken together onegets the sense of a community of simple, hardworking people who have been unjustlymade into outcasts in the town where their families have lived and fished forgenerations. The story of their fightfor justice is not only of historical import, but their determination against all odds is also inspiring for themany people who are today suffering at the hands of an unfeeling bureaucracy inthe southernmost prefecture of Tohoku.
Minamata: The Victims and Their World is one of four documentaries by Noriaki Tsuchimoto (土本典昭, 1928-2008) released by Zakka Films on DVD this year. It has optional English language subtitles and is accompanied by an essay by Abé Mark Nornes (U of Michigan) and film commentaries by Sachiko Mizuno (Kanazawa U). Individuals can purchase this DVD for a reasonable price from independent film distributor Film Baby. Institutions should contact Zakka Films directly for purchasing information
Catherine Munroe Hotes 2011
