Minamata

In September 2021, I watched Minamata for the first time at Toho Cinemas Nagareyama Ootakanomori. The American drama film is released in 2020 starring Johnny Depp.

It depicts the later years of W. Eugene Smith, an American photographer, who photographed and documented people living in Minamata City with mercury poisoning, the so-called Minamata disease that occurred due to the mercury discharged from a factory without treatment in the city of Kumamoto Prefecture. It was based on a true story.

I had imagined it to be depressive before watching it, however, the drama of the sufferers and their families was not excessively staged, though the kind of films tend to be pathetic more than enough. It is simple and also focus on the way of life of the old photographer Eugene played by Johnny Depp whose acting was excellent like always.

Famous Japanese actors appear in it. Tadanobu Asano, Hiroyuki Sanada, Ryo Kase and Jun Kunimura gave a good performance as well as Depp. So did Minami. The wonderful bilingual actor played Aileen who acts in coordination with Mr. Smith and marries him.

I was surprised that the shooting locations were not in Japan because it recreated Japanese scenery in those days really well in spite of the fact that Americans filmed it, moreover, the flick describes Japan better than ones that are set in Japan like Black Rain and The Last Samurai.

The Minamata disease tragedy has continued still now. Then the ugly side of a capitalistic society is common in the countries. The movie is meaningful and wonderful.