REEL JAPAN

Score: 6/10 

MINAMATA is a rare bird of a film. A true story set in the early 1970s in Japan, with brief interludes in NYC, it was filmed in Japan and Serbia. Directed by Andrew Levitas, an American who has helmed two movies, it features a mostly Japanese cast rounded out by Johnny Depp and Bill Nighy. The story features dedicated activists joining up with one reluctant photo-journalist to take on industrial pollution (mercury poisoning at an unspeakable level) in a small Japanese town. The story is such an important historical event, we must wonder why a Japanese director has yet to tackle the subject. Politics? 

The first thing that strikes you about MINAMATA is the photographic fabric of the cinematography. Veteran cinematographer Benoit Delhomme weaves a fabric of color and black and white schemes full of saturation and grain that roots the visuals in Gene’s photographic world. The second thing you notice is the excellent score by the late Japanese composer Sakamoto Ryuichi.

The film tells a compelling story about a nation and community struggling to come to terms with justice and responsibility. That the activists needed to bring in outside help in the form of a LIFE magazine photo-journalist (really, THE first photo-journalist, W. Eugene Smith), and that he had to suffer along with them to document their reality is the heart of the film. Depp is effective as the outsider in a frail position among a sea of Japanese whose language he cannot speak and who are figuratively at war with each other. In his moments of introspection when Gene’s mettle is tested, it may not be Depp’s finest performance but it rings true. Depp is no novice at portraying alcoholics, and Gene’s protestations emerge meekly around gulps of liquor. The film hints at Gene’s PTSD from his photographic tour of duty in WWII. 

Popular actress Minami plays Aileen Mioko, a half Japanese, half American woman dedicated to the cause. Minami is herself half French. She hails (along with Shibasaki Ko, Fujiwara Tatsuya, and Kuriyama Chiaki) from the group of Japanese actors who burst into cinema in the infamously bloody thriller BATTLE ROYALE (2000), a dystopian film that predated the HUNGER GAMES. Minami plays Aileen as both serious and sultry and the film makes much of the sparks between her and Depp. 

Kunimura Jun plays Gene’s nemesis, the factory CEO who tries to strike a Faustian bargain. Kunimura is known for his work in both Japanese cinema and in international films such as Ridley Scott’s BLACK RAIN, Na Hong-Jin’s THE WAILING, Tarentino’s KILL BILL VOL.1, and Miyazaki’s THE BOY AND THE HERON. Depp and Kunimura square off as enemies and mirror images. Both men begin to feel empathy and are resistant to feeling it and showing it. 

MINAMATA suffers from its unusual balance of tone. Depp’s character bumbles through the landscape drunk and seething with self-loathing like a knavish everyman in a Graham Greene thriller. The real Gene Smith, who walked a gauntlet of maximum obstruction and brutality in order to get the pictures, probably didn’t need such embellishments to be cinematic.  

The screenplay clearly chooses Gene as the character through whose eyes we learn the story, but then leaves him out of one of the most important scenes about the townsfolk who struggle for a humane outcome. That scene is anchored by actor Hiroyuki Sandada as a crusading activist. Viewers may feel they are watching two stories but will probably remain invested in both outcomes. 

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