Minamata

The Serbian-British film is based on the 1975 book of the same name by Eugene Smith and Aileen Mioko Smith, and tells the story of an accomplished American war-photographer, who documented the effects of mercury poisoning that tragically affected the people of Minamata, living in the Kumamoto Prefecture of Japan. The progressive neurological disorder it created was named “Minamata disease”, and was first discovered in 1956. It was caused by the release of methylmercury into the city’s industrial wastewater from a chemical factory owned by the Chisso Corporation. Chisso, operated its factory in Minamata for 36 years from 1932 to 1968.

The highly toxic chemical released by Chisso affected the shellfish and fish in Minamata Bay and the surrounding waters of the Shiranui Sea. As of March 2001, 2265 victims had severe mercury poisoning, and 1784 of them died. The disease caused horrendous disfigurements that affected animals and humans for 36 years, and uncertified victims are still surfacing. Minamata illustrates one of the worst industrial pollution disasters Japan has experienced.

Johnny Depp commandingly takes the role of Eugene Smith, who was well known for his photography-essay contributions to the magazine, Life. Smith was eventually commissioned by Life’s editor, Robert Hayes (Nighy), to investigate the poisoning of Minamata residents. Hayes sent Smith to Japan to document the facts of the mercury poisoning, and to photograph the effects of Minamata disease. While in Japan, working on the project, Smith became alert to massive corporate greed, as well as police and government corruption, all implicating Chisso.

The film’s co-producer and actor, Johnny Depp, commandingly imbues the movie with a dramatic edge that links Smith’s personal traits as a depressed, alcoholic journalist, to efforts to confront the atrocities of Minimata by a desire to help. The film is both a realistic portrayal of a massive health problem, and a study of Smith’s personal redemption. At the start of the movie, Smith is destitute, without any personal support, friendless, and isolated. He is roused from his depression by Aileen (Minami Hinase), a Japanese American, who impels him to action by the tragedy of Minamata, and she accompanies him to Japan as his interpreter. With her encouragement, Smith asks Hayes to be sent to Japan, and Hayes, conscious of Smith’s unreliability, ambivalently says “yes”. His Minamata work becomes life-changing, and rescues him emotionally.

Challenging and confronting photos of what Smith found in Japan are copiously illustrated in the film, and the viewer is confronted with grim, compelling images of the tragic effects of Chisso’s industrial pollution. Much of the photography comes from hand-held camera work that movingly accumulates force in graphic images of mercury poisoning at work. The film’s music reinforces the human tragedy of its imagery, and Chisso’s corrupt executives are well captured by actor, Jun Kunimura, who impressively illustrates how corporate power managed to avoid all responsibility.

The film joins two major themes: the exploration of meaning and purpose in life by Eugene Smith to take him away from a depressive past; and cinematic exposure to the horrors of industrial pollution gone terribly wrong. The film fuses the two themes together, and the coherence of each gets lost a little in the mix. The film’s impact is associated mostly with the human misery caused by Minamata and the corruption that surrounded it. It is difficult to get the film’s powerful imagery of Minamata out of one’s mind, so compelling is the movie’s cinematography. The film itself is aptly dedicated to “the victims of industrial pollution around the world”.

Peter W. Sheehan