Ethan Segal reviews Light Up Nippon, directed by Kensaku Kakimoto (2012, 28 minutes), The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom, directed by Lucy Walker (2011, 39 minutes), Pray for Japan, directed by Stuart J. Levy (2012, 97 minutes), and Nuclear Nation, directed by Atsushi Funahashi (2012, 96 minutes)
Light Up Nippon (2012) and The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom (2011) are two shorter films that offer uplifting messages of people overcoming challenges and adversity. Light Up Nippon, produced by the Japan Foundation, focuses on the efforts of Takada Yoshitake and other volunteers to arrange for fireworks displays in several of the devastated communities on August 11, 2011, as a way of honoring the dead and buoying the spirits of the survivors. Mr. Takada and his fellow organizers faced many obstacles, including winning the approval of local residents and finding the money and resources needed amidst so many other demands for relief and assistance. As the film shows, although his proposal was initially rejected by one city official as being ill-timed and insensitive to the victims, other towns embraced the fireworks ideas, arguing that the people needed spiritual support and that the communities needed to appeal to young people in order to rebuild. The event went forward with great success, and similar fireworks displays have been held each August 11th in Japan as well as other countries.
The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom is an award-winning independent film completed in the months immediately following 3.11. Director Lucy Walker had been planning to go to Japan to promote another of her films, but the project changed in the wake of the triple disasters.(3) As reflected by the title, the film has two distinct halves. In the first part, the focus is the tsunami and the resulting destruction and loss of life. It opens with a heart-rending scene of people on a hillside watching the tsunami carry away trucks, houses, everything – the footage demonstrates how quickly the ocean overwhelmed those who did not flee early enough. The subsequent interviews with survivors are equally powerful: one man who has lost everything, including his closest friend, says “I don’t need clothes, a house, anything – just give me his life back.” Other scenes focus on the recovery of bodies, the determination of some residents to return to their homes, and fears about radiation. Although the community is not explicitly named, references to Okawa elementary school and certain images reveal that the city is Ishinomaki.
Pray for Japan (2012) and Nuclear Nation (2013) are two longer films which are much more effective at conveying the realities with which post-tsunami, post- Fukushima residents have had to struggle. Their longer run times (97 and 95 minutes each) allow them to delve into issues more fully, but also make it more difficult to screen these films in shorter-length classes.
read more | Light Up Nippon | The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom | Pray for Japan | Nuclear Nation
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Light Up Nippon, The Tsunami and the Cherry Blosso
04/16/2015 02:20 AM
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Light Up Nippon, The Tsunami and the Cherry Blosso
I too watched Nuclear Nation (2013) last night, this documentary was primarily about the town of Futuba which sprung up in the late 70's and flourished through the 80's on the Nuclear Money from the Fukishima Plant.
Notable scenes (1) People returning to their homes standing or not 1 year after the disaster. The Japanese government asks survivors to apply for a permit in order to return to the isolated area, once permitted residents had to garb up in tons of plastic clothing, wear radiation monitors around their necks, and double plastic bag any items they bring back out of the "zone".
(2) The cattle farmer who did not evacuate after the melt down, all his cattle and himself were exposed to radiation. He was so attached to his animals he decided to stay and care for them. I assume the Japanese Govt. wanted nothing to do do with those radiated cattle, basically let the farmer live it out with the cattle wandering all over the abandoned area to feed. Sadly at the end of the film all the cattle had died from starvation.
There is a direct parallel between Hurricane Katrina and the Fukishima Disaster in terms of the evacuation centers portrayed, of course the Japanese evacuation procedures and emergency housing centers looked far more civilized and organized in this film than what I remember of Katrina rescue and emergency efforts which I think became a disaster in itself.
This film defines the risks of nuclear energy perfectly and could be used with high school students within history, political science, or economics studies to explore the benefits and risks of alternative to CO2 producing energies. As well comparing and contrasting Katrina with Fukashima in terms of response by the American government vs. response by the Japanese government and/or cultural differences in acceptance of disasters would be another interesting high school lesson.
edited by hhardwick on 4/16/2015