The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 5 | Issue 12 | Dec 01, 2007

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Rokkasho, Minamata and Japan's Future: Capturing Humanityon Film

Kamanaka Hitomi

Rokkasho, Minamata and Japan’s Future:Capturing Humanity on Film

Kamanaka Hitomi, Tsuchimoto Noriakiand Norma Field

Translated by Ann Saphir

In this first decade of the twenty-first century,nuclear weapons and nuclear power havereturned to haunt us with a vengeance. In fact,they had never disappeared, of course, but theend of the Cold War and a hiatus in theconstruction of nuclear power plants—owingmuch to citizen activism, let us recall—lulledmany of us into putting these concerns on thebackburner. Now, thanks to 9.11 and newlyvisible U.S. bellicosity, nuclear weapons arebeginning to resume their rightful place highon the list of worries about the planet and thespecies. And, in an irony that would be comicalwere its implications not dire, global warmingitself has prompted endorsement of nuclearpower as a source of clean energy. PresidentGeorge W. Bush has proposed a Global NuclearEnergy Partnership that enta i ls thereprocessing of radioactive wastes fromnuclear power plants, with plutonium anduranium extracted and remade into nuclearfuel for a new type of reactor that has yet to beconstructed. This is a plan that was abandonedby President Jimmy Carter in 1977 because ofconcerns about sa fe ty and nuc learproliferation. [1]

It is just such a reprocessing plant, completedin Rokkasho Village in northern Japan, that isthe focus of documentarist Kamanaka Hitomi's

new film, Rokkasho Rhapsody. Given that herprevious film was Hibakusha at the End of theWorld (2003), Kamanaka's trajectory reflectsprecisely the renewed urgency of nuclearweaponry and nuclear power for the citizens ofthe world. In the earlier film "hibakusha,"meaning victims of radiation poisoning, is usedto refer to all such victims, not just thoseproduced by the atomic bombing of Hiroshimaand Nagasaki. In the film, they are theleukemia-afflicted children of Iraq, thedownwinders of the plutonium plant inHanford, Washington, as well as Hiroshima andNagasaki survivors. Kamanaka belongs to ageneration for which the latter do not have theimmediacy they once had. She came to her ownrelationship to them through Iraq: from workfilming children devastated by the Gulf War,which led to growing knowledge about theimpact of depleted uranium (DU). And fromthere, she began to turn her attention to therole of nuclear power plants in Japan, theUnited States and elsewhere.

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From Hibakusha at the End of the World

In the dialogue translated below, Kamanakaand Tsuchimoto Noriaki, the celebrateddocumentarist of Minamata, discuss suchissues as radiation and Minamata mercurypoisoning, the history of activist documentaryfilm-making and screening in Japan, therelationship between formal matters ofnarration and subtitling to political stance, andquestions of partiality, trust, and usefulness toa cause. Like her predecessors, includingTsuchimoto and Ogawa Shinsuke, thedocumentarist of the Narita Airport struggle,Kamanaka has spent an enormous amount oftime in the community, eventually earning thetrust of some proponents of the reprocessingplant so that they, too, can be heard in theirown words. The effect is not a relativist onesuch that proponents balance out opponents.Rather, by drawing outward from the very real

economic challenge facing depopulated ruralcommunities, the film impresses on viewers theurgency of addressing the fundamentalprinciples governing society today. Consider,for example, the fact that plans for theRokkasho plant have moved to fruition despitethe fact that no plant capable of using its"recycled" fuel is scheduled to go on line for atleast fifty years. It becomes evident thatRokkasho is nothing other than a giant storagefacility for the wastes generated by all thenuclear plants deemed necessary to supportour current lifestyle.

Such reflection is being generated throughoutJapan by independent screenings of the film.Although Rokkasho Rhapsody has had severalsuccessful theater runs, screenings organized(and paid for) by groups of interestedcitizens—approximately 250 since its release inMarch 2006—mobilize new communities andgenerate new ways of addressing the issue. Asfor the plant itself, full operation has beenpostponed until February of 2008 as a result ofthe disclosure of one defect after another,coming after a series of mishaps with powerplants elsewhere, of which the Tokaimuracriticality incident of 1999, the leakage ofnonradioactive steam from Mihama in 2004,and the leakage caused by the 2007 Niigataearthquake are only the most dramatic.

The issues of nuclear power and nuclearweaponry are never far apart for Kamanakaherself. In the course of a discussion at theUniversity of Chicago during her April 2007visit for the U.S. premiere of RokkashoRhapsody, Kamanaka disclosed that she herselfhad been affected by her exposure to DU inIraq, specifically during the December 1998bombing of Baghdad known as OperationDesert Fox ( just pr ior to the Cl intonimpeachment), after which she contractedcancer. Though diffident about claiming theidentity of hibakusha for herself, she hasconsented to having this biographical detailshared more widely in the hopes that US

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soldiers might be alerted to their ownsymptoms. [2]

Norma Field

[1] For a U.S. government account of GNEP,see this website (http://www.gnep.energy.gov/).For a critical report, see this website(http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/assets/binaries/lobal-nuclear-energy-partnersh). For anaccount of a local (Illinois) screening ofRokkasho Rhapsody together with a case of asplit between concerned residents and labor,the latter siding with industry on siting areprocessing plant, see this website(http://www.nukewastecampaign.com/page10.html). (all accessed 3 November 2007).

[2] Rokkasho Rhapsody is not yet available fordistribution in the U.S. The 2003 fi lmHibakusha can be purchased in a 90-minuteEnglish-language version titled Radiation, ASlow Death: A New Generation of Hibakushaf r o m t h i s w e b s i t e(http://www.choices.web.aplus.net/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=CV&Product_Code=CH7024DVD&Category_Code=). Fora t a s t e o f H i b a k u s h a , s e e L i n k T V(http://www.linktv.org/programs/nuclear_hibak).

A podcast of Kamanaka's discussion withdocumentarist Judy Hoffman and film scholarMichael Raine following the screening ofRokkasho Rhapsody is available at this website(http://chiasmos.uchicago.edu/events/kamanaka.shtml).

A transcription of Kamanaka's classroomdiscussion with Dave Kraft of Nuclear EnergyInformation Service, including her discussion ofher DU exposure and cancer, may be foundtogether with other materials gathered for theCelebrating Protest series at the University ofC h i c a g o h e r e(http://www.celebratingprotest.org/). Anothertext by Kamanaka about lessons in alternative

media production gained in New York andJapan, "Producing Alternative Media," is alsoincluded.

One of Kamanaka's interlocutors in Chicagowas Dave Kraft of Nuclear Energy InformationService. Kraft's website (http://www.neis.org/)contains a wealth of information on nuclearenergy and related activism.

Development and Pollution: CapturingHumanity on Film

A Conversation Between TsuchimotoNoriaki and Kamanaka Hitomi

MATSUURA HIROYUKI (MODERATOR): Theissue of low-level radiation depicted in Ms.Kamanaka’s film, Hibakusha -- At the End ofthe World, is in many ways a replay of theproblematic pattern of Minamata disease on amore global level. The structural aspects of theissue also remind us of Director Tsuchimoto’sseries of works on Minamata.

Low-level radiation and Minamata disease havemany points in common. In both, the body issickened with an “invisible poison” spreadthrough the environment through humanmeans; in both, the poison is absorbed throughthe food chain into the body, where itaccumulates; “science” and “data” obstructefforts to aid and compensate the victims; andboth involve regional economic issues linked tothe lives of local people.

In addition to works on Minamata disease, Mr.Tsuchimoto pioneered films that fostered apublic awareness of the danger of Japan’snuclear policies, such as A Scrapbook AboutNuclear Power Plants (1982) and Umitori--Robbing of the Sea: Shimokita Peninsula(1984), as well the problems of “regionaldevelopment.”

Ms. Kamanaka is taking up the issue of

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Rokkashomura’s nuclear reprocessing plant inher new work, Rokkashomura Rhapsody[released 2006].

These two documentarists from differentgenerations will speak freely about theirthoughts and impressions with regard to theirwork and documentary film in general.

Issues in Trace Intake and Low-LevelRadiation Exposure in Minamata,Rokkasho, and Iraq

TSUCHIMOTO: Mr. Matsuura said that low-level radiation presents the same issues asMinamata, and that’s absolutely so. Theproblems of low-level radiation exposure alsorelate to the future of Minamata. If you were torepresent the numbers of victims with theirsymptoms as a pyramid, it doesn’t exactly fitthe pattern where the critically ill form theapex and the base is a broad gray area. Itwouldn't exactly be wrong to say that, but inreality the base is broad and messy.

Early on it was understood that the maincontaminated fish were sardines and swordfish,as well as squid and octopus and shellfish. Butrecently the problem has been associated withlong-lived ocean fish. There’s not much effecton the body if you eat a fish that’s only lived fora half a year or a year. But the longer a fishlives, the more mercury is accumulated in itsbody. So if it’s a fish that’s lived longer thanabout three years, it comes out very clearly inthe numbers. Mercury pollution is gettingworse in many parts of the world’s oceans.That’s because of the relationship betweenmercury on the one hand and industrializationand widespread use of chemical fertilizers onthe other.

Northern Europe has a big pulp industry. Someprocesses at pulp factories require mercury.There are also pulp factories in the populationcenters of indigenous people in Canada.Mercury was also used in pesticides andpreservative treatments for forests.

Even in Japan you shouldn’t eat a lot of tuna,because tuna live a long time. Eating tunadoesn’t suddenly elevate your mercury levels,but even if the level of mercury in your hairmeasures at a normal level, mercury can stillbe accumulating throughout the body. Fish thatlive three or four years, such as salmon, areborderline.

I used to think that after witnessing Minamatadisease, humankind would have learned alesson. But if you look at where the world’smercury levels have gone since, it’s clear that’ssimply wrong. Mercury is an extremely usefulsubstance that’s used as a catalyst in liquid,gas or solid form. In the Amazon and suchplaces it is used to process gold, and gold isused a lot in cell phones.

KAMANAKA: That’s right. Precious metals areused in cell phones, though in very smallamounts. I don’t know how we can dispose ofall those cell phones.

TSUCHIMOTO: That’s why I think your filmshows how the problems of low-level radiationexposure and disposal of trace amounts arenew additions to the horror of the atomic bomb.I think this is a very farsighted message.Researchers have known about it. But we arethe only ones to communicate it.

KAMANAKA: While scientists have said for thelast fifty years that it’s fine if it’s only a smallamount [of a toxic substance], your Minamatafilms opened my eyes to the fact that even asmall amount is dangerous. It was Minamatathat showed us images of how mercury isconcentrated in the body and goes to the brainand the nervous system of the fetus, and howchemical substances work in nature. Despitehow myths around trace intake have beenpunctured in Minamata, I realized our societyhad not yet caught up.

TSUCHIMOTO: And we have dioxin that wasspread through the defoliants used in theVietnam War. That kind of thing is inexcusable

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on the part of the United States. And of course,while there’s no question it’s inexcusable, wehave to stay cool when we report on somethingthat's been around for a long time and beenignored. It doesn’t do any good to shout aboutit. Doing so can invite a backlash, especiallyfrom experts who say, “We already know thesethings. Don’t complain about it now.”

KAMANAKA: That is what I feel is mostdifficult. Among film people, there are somewho say dismissively, “This is a documentaryfilm that accuses XYZ,” but the point ofHibakusha is not to make accusations. It's notthat scientists are wrong, or politicians arewrong, but rather that we who are supportingthe situation must give it some thought. That’sit in a nutshell: I have to be able to providesomething that the audience can understandwith their brains but that also creates such anacute sense of awareness that they begin to sayto themselves, “We can't let things go on likethis” – that’s what I want to be able to get themto feel.

Kamanaka Hitomi

TSUCHIMOTO: Along those lines, I’ve beenthinking of something lately. I’ve been makingfilms about Minamata for a long time, and thepeople who really start to think deeply aboutMinamata, even among those who have seenmy movies, are those who have visitedMinamata and met patients and had a chanceto talk directly with them. Those are the peoplewho are really taking full responsibility for theproblem. I’m honored that my movies motivateso many people. But the current state of theinformation industry turns even usefulinformation into products for consumption. Thereceiver thinks, “I already know this. I get it,and I feel done in.” But then, they don’t doanything. Because the information industryprovides the answer—“You are not going toenter that kind of world, you want to live adifferent life”—and makes them feel relieved by

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alternating threats with flattery so that in theend, they don’t have to do anything. In otherwords, they have been sucked into thinking,“It’s okay as long as I'm comfortable; I won’t letmy children get close to X or Y, I won’t go toany place like that.”

KAMANAKA: I think you have to be able to seethe reality that you can’t escape by being likethat. Because wherever you try to escape, itwill come find you.

What's hard about Rokkashomura is that noone has gotten sick yet. While there's a buildupof radioactive materials, there aren't anypatients. The damage will take a while toappear, and even then, if it takes the form of anillness that anyone can get such as cancer orleukemia, it will be hard to prove that it'scaused by radiation. How do we make peoplerecognize the harm caused by the power plantindustry, that is, by radiation? It’s troubling,how hard it is to visualize getting to that point.

Rokkasho PR Center of Japan Nuclear Fuel,Ltd.,

owner-operator of the reprocessing plant

TSUCHIMOTO: And in Tokaimura, that nuclearchain reaction incident claimed two victims[1],but until the incident actually happened theyhad believed absolutely that nothing like thatcould ever occur. There’s maybe nothing youcan do but keep your eyes on such examples.Once it's visible on the outside, the problemhas already become horrendous.

TSUCHIMOTO: You found your way to thissubject while researching in Iraq during theUnited Nations’ economic embargo in the

1990s. Is that right?

KAMANAKA: At the time we didn't see whysuch low levels of radiation were affectingchildren’s health.

TSUCHIMOTO: This is something I heard froma doctor, but the human species has beenexposed to many poisons in its hundreds ofthousands of years of history, so there isapparently always a structure in the body thatcan protect you against, for instance, inorganicmercury. When I was young, I once watchedsleepless for seven days and six nights frombeginning to end as a friend lay dying aftertrying to commit suicide by drinking inorganicmercury. We should have made him drink eightor nine raw eggs to absorb the mercury andthrow it up. And it’s the kind of poison thatmakes you want to vomit. In other words,people have learned a lot about such poisons.

In the human body there are barriers aroundthe brain or the placenta through whichpoisonous materials structurally cannot pass.But with organic mercury it’s different. I thinkyou will understand if you see the film, but, aswith the patients who were affected as fetuses,it’s clear it passes through the placenta.

KAMANAKA: It violates the deepest part of thehuman species.

TSUCHIMOTO: It trashes the long historythat's gone into making the human body what itis.

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Tsuchimoto Noriaki

KAMANAKA: And that’s where you can find oneanswer to the question of why such a smallamount of a chemical substance made byhumans would be so dangerous. As you know,organic mercury is a heavy metal. Theradioactive substances of plutonium anduranium are also heavy metals. Because theyare similar to naturally occurring minerals, thebody can’t tell the difference. There are certainorgans in the body in which mineralsconcentrate, like bones, for instance, that takeup large amounts of calcium. Strontium 90, aradioactive substance, is very similar tocalcium. So the body doesn’t know what kind ofsubstance it is but mistakes it for calciumbecause it is similar, and so it goes ahead andabsorbs it. Because strontium lodges in thebones and doesn’t dissipate, it just stays thereand gives off radiation, harming the marrowand destroying the blood-production systemand leading to leukemia.

Neither the government nor the mass media tryto spread the word about a mechanism that isso simply described.

So even if people hear that radioactivesubstances are dangerous, if the local

promoters of nuclear power don’t have thatinformation and are told that the radiation froma plant is too little or too weak to matter, theyare simply persuaded it won’t harm the body. Ithink there is a passive att i tude on asubconscious level that lulls them into thinkingit’s safe. Rather than stop using somethingbecause it’s dangerous, they want to believe it'ssafe so they can keep using it.

TSUCHIMOTO: Many people are beggingdoctors and experts to say something's“harmless,” that there’s “no possibility oftrouble,” that it “should be safe.” There are fewpeople who, if reassured by an expert, willcontinue to pursue it and ask, “Is that reallytrue?”

KAMANAKA: That’s a point that really bothersme.

TSUCHIMOTO: All we can do is thoroughlyintroduce the issues under investigation bypeople like Harada Masazumi in Minamata andDr. Hida in Hibakusha.

Something that struck me as very familiarwhen I saw Hibakusha was that doctors don’tspeak clearly about cause and effect. Anydoctor knows that you can’t definitivelydetermine a cause and effect relationshipbetween what you ate and your symptoms. Allyou can do is gather data that shows withdepleted uranium, for instance, how manycases of leukemia there are in a given area, orhow prevalent thyroid diseases are, or howcommon breast cancer is in women.[2]

In the recent Supreme Court ruling[3] onMinamata there are two critical points. InMinamata disease, numbness of the hands andfeet is the most common symptom. Doctors saythat numbness of the hands and feet could befrom more than a hundred reasons. That’s true:my hands and feet are losing sensation becauseI am diabetic. So many patients cannot getcertified or are rejected because it cannot beproven that their symptoms are from Minamata

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disease.

People would see that a patient might complainof numbness one day, but other days theywouldn’t have any numbness, and rumorswould get started – they're lying, they're fakingit. That was very hard on people with Minamatadisease. There was nothing that could be doneabout those comments, either. Because theysay there really are days when you feel tinglingand others when you don’t. The real cause wasin the brain. When one part of the brain isimpaired by mercury, you get waves where itcreates very serious numbness; by contrast,when you aren’t stressed, the numbness goesaway. That was confirmed by the court.

And then there’s epidemiology. Whatever elseyou say, in areas where there are manypatients, even people who stay healthy and aretold they don’t have Minamata disease eventhough they've continued to eat the fish, theyall tend to have serious symptoms like thyroidproblems. Compare that to residents of otherareas where they eat just as much fish asMinamata, for instance, in Miyazaki Bay, wherethere are very few people with similarsymptoms.

That’s why in Iraq too, while there may not be athorough scientific explanation for why somany children are falling ill, it’s clear there area lot of them, so it’s possible to be prettydefinitive.

KAMANAKA: There’s a specific history to theanalysis of radiation poisoning. Data showingthat there shouldn’t be any harm from exposureto radiation of less than a certain level ofsieverts was calculated from the HiroshimaModel. So with depleted uranium, it is assertedthat because the radiation level is low, thereshould be no damage.

TSUCHIMOTO: The issue is who says that.

KAMANAKA: That, of course, comes from thenuclear power industry. The International

Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP)is seen internationally as the most authoritativeorganization, but they attach more importanceto the impact of “external radiation exposure”where the body is bombarded by radiation fromthe outside. The impact of “internal radiation,”where the radiation comes from radioactivesubstances that have been taken up into thebody, is given unfairly short shrift.

It is this ICRP’s recommendation -- that it’sokay for the human body to be exposed to lessthan one millisievert a year -- that led to thetheory that depleted uranium munitions areokay because they come in below that level.But in reality, the facts contradict this “data.” Ifyou look at it the other way, you have to cometo the conclusion that internal radiationexposure can damage the human body at evenlower doses. But based on decades ofcumulative data, even if a few people in100,000 got sick, for instance, the argument isthat the benefits to society of using it takeprecedence.

TSUCHIMOTO: The idea that technological andindustrial development should take priority isthe worst product of 20th century thinking.

KAMANAKA: Here’s the logic: it would takethis much money to reduce radiat ioncontamination, and if you make businessesshoulder that burden their growth might beimpeded. Imagine how it would be, forinstance, if electricity rates went up and manypeople lost money. You might be led to say,maybe it can’t be helped that a number ofpeople die. As long as we ourselves are not thevictims, we close our eyes to the facts.

The Realities of High Economic Growth and“Local Development”

TSUCHIMOTO: Since the high economicgrowth period that began about 1955, theideology of the survival of the fittest has beenclearly evident in Japanese society.

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I traveled often to Rokkashomura in the late1950s and later in the early 1980s, and whateverybody was afraid of back then was money.Around that same time I made a field trip to seethe changes brought about by an industrialcomplex in Kashima in Ibaragi Prefecture. Thiswas when Kashima was known as Japan’s Tibet.Cash was everywhere, and even childrenplaying outside had 10,000-yen bil ls.Rokkashomura was the same. Money destroyedthe lives and livelihoods of the village, andvalues were shattered.

There’s a terri f ic book cal led Untold“Deve lopment” - - From Kash ima toRokkashomura (published by Henkyosha,distributed by Keiso Shobo, 1973). Do youknow it? I think it’s out of print now, but theauthor, Ishikawa Jiro, worked in Mito after thewar, and he was one of the first intellectuals tosee through the dishonesty of “development.”

An industrial complex was planned forKashima, a remote area as far as Mito [theprefectural capital] was concerned, so theentire prefecture was welcoming it with openarms. At the time Ishikawa was a reporter for alocal newspaper. He looked very thoroughly atthe process of “development” and said tohimself, “This is wrong.” Development forwhom? Isn’t it in the end the farmers whoseland is stolen, whose lives are destroyed, whosuffer?

He did a lot of research and put it together tomake this book. The book was extremely wellread in some circles. One person fromRokkashomura, who at the time opposed theMutsu-Ogawara development [4], said, “I wantsomebody like this to be a part of our group,”and invited him to join. He accepted and,without taking any money except to cover foodand transportation, he came to live inRokkashomura for a while. But then he waskicked out because of a difference of opinionwith the progressive parties over elections.

I think that the Rokkashomura mayor at the

time, Terashita Rikisaburo, understood in hisbones the horror of money. The first job MayorTerashita had after graduating from highschool was at Chosen Chisso (a unit of NipponChisso Corporation, the predecessor companyto the Chisso that caused Minamata disease).He was a factory worker, and he saw with hisown eyes all manner of discrimination againstKoreans. He was someone who could anticipatethe horrors that would come with the influx ofmajor capital to a village like his own, which hecould see was as behind-the-times as a colony.So that’s why he wouldn’t budge an inch on“development.”

KAMANAKA: When I listen to the older menand women in Rokkashomura, they say , there'snothing they can say to young people. Ask themwhy and they’ll say it’s because they needmoney. Long ago they didn’t need money. Theywould simply trade squid and vegetables. Butthat doesn’t work with today’s lifestyles. Theywant cars, they need to send their children tocollege, and everything costs money.

And with their way of life, money wasn’tcoming in, so they couldn’t keep on as farmersand fishermen. This is what they say veryclearly.

TSUCHIMOTO: In the short time span since theMeiji Period, I don’t think there is any placethat has been as ruined as Rokkashomura.

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Mategoya (fishing huts, no longer in use)on Ogawarako, a brackish lake in Rokkasho

After the war, they began clearing land to maketheir living and in a little over a decade, talk ofdevelopment projects would surface,construct ion companies would comeswaggering in and if you showed the slightestinterest, it would quickly become known, andrich people would buy up land on speculation.It was not just the state --- it was the wholesociety that came to be like that.

KAMANAKA: It feels like the values that areimportant for human beings are always trippedup by money. I saw it in small increments as Igathered my materials. Fathers would go to thecity in the winter as seasonal workers becausethey couldn’t make enough money with justfishing or farming. When that happens, it’s themother who raises the children and keeps thehome together. Fatherless families emerge andfamily life falls apart. The father's in Tokyoworking as hard as he can for his family, butthe family’s love for the father graduallyweakens.

The family that should come together to facethe world and protect the household is alreadydestroyed. The father is no more than themoney he sends back. So when even moremoney becomes available, the things that arethe most important are easily given up, is whatI think.

When I saw your film Umitori—Robbing of theSea: Shimokita Peninsula, I felt like I wasfilming the same location twenty years later. InRokkashomura, twenty years on, there are wideroads, buildings, and in a place that used to bean empty lot now a giant reprocessing planthas been completed, smokestacks and all. But Ifeel the undeveloped land that the settlersfound has in some way become even more of awilderness.

A wilderness of land caused by money. I amsure the land that used to be called the

periphery was rich once. There is the “smell” ofrichness. But they threw all that away.

TSUCHIMOTO: And they have gotten nothingin return.

KAMANAKA: I agree.

The Meaning of Pursuing a Single Subject,Documentary Filmmaking by Women

TSUCHIMOTO: All things considered, I’m gladto have worked on Minamata for such a longtime.

KAMANAKA: I really wanted to ask you aboutthat. It seems as if it would be hard to keepexploring a single subject for a long time. Whatdo you think?

TSUCHIMOTO: It’s enormously rewarding. Itdid happen once while I was still absorbed byMinamata disease that I suddenly lost myappetite for it. I thought about how many yearsI'd spent on Minamata disease: it turned out tobe about twenty years. I had to eat, so Ithought about other topics and actually workedon Afghanistan. But I always had my antennaup for Minamata disease. It's always been onmy mind. Even when I wasn’t making a film, I'dgo to Minamata and write reportage, madeslides and so on. I’ve never missed a day ofclipping newspaper articles.

Once you've worked on a place like this, you'reable to find any example you might want toillustrate what it is to be human. In Minamata Ican find this kind of poverty and that kind ofwealth, this sort of resilience and that sort ofslyness. For example, there was a case in whicha patient died cursing and hateful afterimmense suffering. And on the other handthere was a patient who recovered from thatstate and attained enlightenment, gaining asmuch as had been suffered. There's quite arange of cases.

KAMANAKA: But I think Minamata is unique.

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Other parts of Japan would not be like that.

TSUCHIMOTO: Right. But why do you thinkthat is?

KAMANAKA: Is the culture of Minamatadifferent?

TSUCHIMOTO: Basically it’s because they'reliving with fish and nature.

KAMANAKA: I agree. When I met SugimotoEiko (a Minamata disease patient who appearsin director Tsuchimoto’s Shiranui Sea andMinamata Diary), I was surprised

because she spoke of that which “was given.”What was the local term?

TSUCHIMOTO: It’s “nusari.”

KAMANAKA: Yes, “nusari.” Both good and badare given by the sea. She told me that we haveto accept both and live, even though sometimeswe get bad things from the sea.

K A M A N A K A : W h e n I b e g a n m a k i n gdocumentaries in the mid-1980s, I didn't knowwhat kind of documentary film I wanted tomake or what kind of subject to pursue. I wentto Canada to try to find out, but before then, Ichecked out many fi lms by Mr. OgawaShinsuke and by you and watched them. “Ididn't have any idea films like this alreadyexisted!" was my reaction. [4]

TSUCHIMOTO: I have some female directorfriends such as Tokieda Toshie and HanedaSumiko, and what impresses me about them ishow they could handle any kind of project theywere given while at Iwanami Film. [5] Becausethey were workers and couldn’t afford to foolaround, they accepted any proposal unless itwas really awful. That’s why they don’t have aconsistent series of work even though theystayed at Iwanami until they retired. Theymade some superb films, though. Ms. Tokieda’sthree works, I Hate Hospitals, With the

Farmers, and Weaving Earth, which exploredlocal medicine in Saku, Nagano Prefecture, areexcellent. Ms. Haneda Sumiko also focused onthe issue of aging and explored what agingmeans in works such as How to Care for theSenile and Welfare as Chosen by Our Town'sCitizens. Because she was having a hard timetaking care of her mother, I imagine she wasvery aware of those kinds of problems. I think itwas good that both of them pursued oneparticular interest for a long time.

KAMANAKA: I heard that Ms. Haneda told Ms.Hamano Sachi (the film director), “Womendirectors really get going after they turn fifty.”I felt really encouraged.

TSUCHIMOTO: Although I was involved inpolitical movements until I was twenty-eightyears old, I never thought that entering the filmindustry so late was a disadvantage. What I didbefore then was to my benefit. NishiyamaMasanori, who made Yuntanza Okinawa, alsocame to me as an assistant director when hewas twenty-eight years old. He watched myShiranui Sea and thought it was interesting.When I saw his resume, I noticed that althoughhe was only a high school graduate, he hadabout ten licenses for work in the constructionindustry. He’s currently making a film aboutMinamata again after thirty years, and I thinkit’ll be a good one.

The history of film is still so short--you ought towork with the idea that you're going to be theone to establish what people will laterrecognize as a history of women directors.Supposing you go on to pursue in differentways the subject that moved you at the start ofyour career, it'll be good if the outcome is aninterpretation of your work that shows, this iswhat I've spent my life seeking. I want you toleave behind works that show the results ofliving a life like this.

KAMANAKA: Wow, that’s hard!

TSUCHIMOTO: My films are also a result of my

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life. Thirty years ago, when I finished my firstwork Minamata: The Victims and Their World, Ithought I had filmed what I should film and wasgoing to stop. When I expressed my relief atfinishing, Ishimure Michiko stared me in theface and said “Mr. Tsuchimoto, it’s not going toend with this.” [6] Her words galvanized me.The late Mr. Maeda Katsuhiro (film producer)said to me, “Wouldn’t it be nice if there wasone film person who did one thing for a longtime?” This was also a hint. I owe so much toMs. Ishimure and him.

But if I’m to earn my living in film, peoplearound me are not going to encourage me tokeep pursuing the same thing. You might beable to continue until you make the third film,but after that you’re going to hear, “Enoughalready, I get it.” At the same time, I get tofeeling that way, too -- “Maybe I should doother things.” Of course, I’m interested in othertopics, and besides, it’s hard to make money if Iwork on a single thing. There was even a timewhen I couldn’t support myself. Surprisinglyenough, there's a wife who's been willing to letme develop, and that’s why I’ve been able towork so freely, but it’s really difficult.

KAMANAKA: Making films takes all my energy,and I feel lucky to be able to do it. But if I losemoney, I won’t be able to move on to the nextproject.

TSUCHIMOTO: But Hibakusha has the powerto make you produce your next work. There’ssomething that makes me eager to see howyou’d make a sequel. That's because you'reclearly a person with a message.

The Effect of Narration and Subtitles (ThePolitics of Films without Narration)

TSUCHIMOTO: In your book, you say thisabout your editing method, “Because the orderin which the scenes were shot is the order ofmy seeing and finding out, I cannot change it.”That was impressive.

KAMANAKA: I was criticized by my firstteacher for that. He said that the order shouldbe changed.

TSUCHIMOTO: Depending on how you shoot,you may not be able to change the order.

KAMANAKA: That’s right. Although you canmake a film more intelligible by organizing itneatly, I think you lose something, even thoughit might not show. What it is, and I guess youare also the same, is that the film reflects thefeelings and thoughts that I have while I'mshooting, although it may not look like it. Thesense that I'm there, that I exist. If I change thechronological order, I feel like that sense is cutoff. I don’t want to cut the continuity or thethread that ties me to the scenes I film. This ishow I made Hibakusha.

TSUCHIMOTO: Because that’s how you makeyour films, which is what I expected, thefinished product itself isn’t cool.

KAMANAKA: Right, it’s not cool.

TSUCHIMOTO: The American documentaryfilmmaker Frederick Wiseman was also aboutthirty-six years old when he began working infilm. He had been a lawyer. Now he has aboutforty titles to his name. I feel an affinity forhim. I give him huge credit for the uniquenessof his narrative.

KAMANAKA: His works aren’t narrated. It’samazing he can make a film without narration.

TSUCHIMOTO: He can do it because he’s whohe is. There are many people who say theydon’t want to use narration these days. It’sbecome fashionable, and there're many filmsthat don’t use narration that you don't knowwhat to do with when you watch them becausethey're immature.

KAMANAKA: I use narration.

TSUCHIMOTO: I do too. I didn’t use it in On

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the Road (1964) and Prehistory of the PartisanParty (1969), though.

KAMANAKA: I need narration no matter what. Iactually think it’s very important to be “easy tounderstand.”

TSUCHIMOTO: In your case, you havesomething you’re dying to say, right? It’s notgood if the audience doesn’t hear it. Thatmakes complete sense.

KAMANAKA: But as a film style it remains veryorthodox. Style is not my priority, but I havethis nagging feeling that as cinematicexpression the best documentary films arethose without narration.

TSUCHIMOTO: I think it’s fine to have sceneswithout narration, but to try to make that thestyle for your whole film is to try to be betterthan the film you just shot. If you and your filmhave the same foundation, I think it’s fine notto worry about having some scenes where thepictures form the narration and others whereyou narrate.

KAMANAKA: That I can be free about how Imake my films is something that I learned fromyour films and those by Mr. Ogawa.

TSUCHIMOTO: In my opinion, the reasonWiseman doesn't have narration is that hewouldn’t be able to make money if he saidsomething radical in the United States. That’swhy Wiseman’s films are put together as if tosay, "I want you to understand. I’ve picked upenough things that you should be able to feelsomething just by watching.” When I watch hisworks, there’re parts where I imagine anordinary director would insert some radicalwords. There're parts where, even if there wereradical words, I think the viewer wouldn't beput off. Sometimes, watching his films andnoticing the choices he's made, I find myselfthinking, if I were asked to edit this, I'd beadding some narration. I think he doesn't wantto be “labeled.”

Narration is central to being “labeled.” That’swhy Kamei Fumio put lots of narration in hisShanghai (1938), but not in his FightingSoldiers (1939), which he put his heart into.[7]He didn’t want the Army to get hold of anythinghe didn't want to have known. If the film wasmade up only of pictures and sounds, he couldescape blame by saying that he hadn’t intendedwhatever he was being accused of, but youcan’t fudge if you use words. The subtitles sayonly, “Soldiers are fighting.” But when you seeit, it’s clear that it expresses war weariness. Hebet everything on that. In an era with tightregulations on film, I guess he thought heshould try to do something like that. It was asmuch as he could have done because it was atime when anti-war movies were out of thequestion. At the time, he bet everything on thesubtitles. Narration doesn’t take much time,but subtitles require the audience to view themas part of the film. Their size and timing matteras well.

KAMANAKA: In Hibakusha, there is littlenarration in the scenes in the U.S. I don’t haveto say anything because my subjects talk. AsI’m filming Rokkashomura, however, it’s veryhard. They don’t talk.

Structural Issues of the Nuclear Power Industry

TSUCHIMOTO: The home of novelist MinakamiTsutomu is where the nuclear plant is locatedat Wakasa Bay (Fukui Prefecture), and many ofhis relatives work at the plant. Whenever hegoes home he pays close attention to thechanges the nuclear power plant has broughtto the village and villagers. He doesn’t writemuch about it, but he’s talked to me about it alot.

But he gets angry when I try to make a recordof it. I brought my daughter, and when shetried to turn on a tape recorder, he noticed andseemed ready to smack her on the head.

One thing he said that I will never forget is thatpeople who do the construction work should be

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local people. Because local people will do thework carefully.

KAMANAKA: That’s right.

TSUCHIMOTO: Most construction site workersa r e s u b c o n t r a c t o r s . U s u a l l y s u b -subcontractors, so their budgets are tight andthey want to finish quickly. They’ll do thingslike mix sand from the ocean, which is full ofsalt, into the concrete, so no wonder thebuilding doesn't last.

Whenever it’s reported that inspectors failed todetect a problem in a nuclear plant’sconstruction, Minakami said, “Of course. Thoseconstruction site workers didn't think theywould be living there the rest of their lives, soof course they did a sloppy job.”

From the point of view of the builders, taking“safety” precautions would raise costs toomuch. Rokkashomura is no exception.

Subcontract workers

KAMANAKA: That ’ s r ight . I went toRokkashomura again last week, and was finallyable to film a study group of people who workat the facility. I heard the stories of peoplewhose work was to go into the casks (specialcontainers for spent nuclear fuel), take thenuclear waste and bring it to the storage pool.They work with great care, and so areconvinced they are quite safe, and becausetheir families live in town, they believe nothingbad could happen there and they wouldn't letanything happen. And they say that theopposition keeps screaming that it’s dangerous,but they haven’t studied the situationadequately. When you hear them talk youalmost want to nod your head and say, “Yes,that’s right!” But it doesn’t change the fact thatthe system itself is fragile.

No one ever talks about the horrible structureof the nuclear power industry whose existenceis built on the assumption that there'll be acertain number of sacrifices and there'snothing to be done about it. And there's nosense of this as part of their gut feelings,either.

The industry is structured so that where thevillagers work, no matter how rigorous thesafety procedures, there're bound to beaccidents and mistakes, but that fact isinvisible.

TSUCHIMOTO: It’s just as you say. Another

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problem with nuclear plants, I think, is thatwhen there’s an accident there are alwayspeople who lie about it. And the small lies leadto bigger lies. Everybody who works there hasa collective responsibility for those people.There's always someone whose conscience tellsthem, “I knew there was something wrong.” It’sclear how the small lies symbolize their overallcorruption.

The mayor of Rokkashomura committed suicidein 2002.[8] Nobody can say anything aboutsomeone who died. I think we have to keep aclose watch on the collective structure of lies inthe workplace and the region and the fact thatsuch lies are the source of the greatestdevastation.

KAMANAKA: People who lived in Minamataand worked for Chisso but didn’t havesymptoms of Minamata disease kept denyingthe lying that was going on and the accusationsby victims against the perpetrators. Why thatwas so was in large part because Chisso putfood on their plates. Things were set up so thatif they attacked Chisso, they would put theiro w n l i v e s a t r i s k . I t ’ s t h e s a m e i nRokkashomura. The money generated by areprocessing plant is enormous. But thebenefits each villager sees is miniscule.Where's the black hole it's all being suckedinto?

TSUCHIMOTO: Construction, I'd imagine. Butyou can imagine how little money goes to localworkers in the construction industry. Once theconstruction is complete, the work is done, andyou're unemployed again. So it’s the samesituation as in Minamata where you suppressall criticism because you want to keep food onthe table.

The local people feel they’re all one family, soeven if there’s an injustice, they can’t criticizeit.

TSUCHIMOTO: But when there's an accident,and people from the inside lie during the

investigation in order to cover it up, that’s acrime, don’t you think? It’s different from thosewho work as day laborers. They have anexcuse, but for someone who works thereregularly, it’s a crime.

KAMANAKA: To begin with, it’s odd thatthere’s no agency charged with surveillance toensure against accidents. An investigation ofthe cause of an accident just becomes ana n n o u n c e m e n t f r o m t h e “ i m p e r i a lheadquarters.” It’s always a report that says,“There was an accident but it didn't cause anyhealth damage.”

TSUCHIMOTO: I think the study group that youment ioned of people work ing at thereprocessing plant is a great thing. They aren’tjust unthinkingly working to make a living.They're thinking about whether or not workingthere is good, and there’s no reason why thatcouldn’t be taken in a positive direction. Ifyou're a local resident, you don’t want the landthat your grandchildren will live on to bepolluted, so if you gain knowledge throughstudy, you might be able to put the brakes onthe drive for efficiency. But there’s a “classaspect” even to that kind of study. What kind ofknowledge is going to be absorbed? Beingsincere about studying isn't enough; the issueis the truth of the matter. There's a lot of localpride, so please portray them with utmost care.

Film as “Mirror”

KAMANAKA: On the one hand there are thepeople who rely on the plant to put food on thetable and on the other hand there are thepeople who oppose it. They live in the samevillage, but there is no communication betweenthe two sides.

When I went to shoot the transportation ofspent nuclear fuel, there were peopleoutsideside the fence shouting, “Stop!” and onthe inside those who silently took the materialfrom the casks and brought it in. The protestorswant the plant to be shut down because they

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view an accident as inevitable, and even ifthere is no accident they see a continuing riskof radiation contamination.

The people who work in the plant say that thereis less radiation from the plant than is to befound in nature, and that because they arecarrying out their work very carefully therewon’t be any accidents.

There's an enormous gulf between the twosides. I think this is the heart of the matter.And I think that what gets ignored is whetherthe nuclear power industry can bring realhappiness to the peop le who l i ve inRokkashomura.

What I am interested in is less the opinions ofthe protesters than what is going on in thehearts and minds of those who have acceptedthe plant. What kind of thought process makesit possible for them to say that the plant wherethey work, which might spread radioactivematerial, is “good”—and believe it?

TSUCHIMOTO: That’s where, as you make yourfilms, you must hold up the “mirror” that isunique to films. Naturalism won’t do it.

KAMANAKA: Yes, that’s right. A moment agoyou said that when you were filming Minamatayou set yourself the task of not imitatingyourself. I also think that I can’t use the samefilming techniques I used in Hibakusha. What Iwant is for the people who are in my films tosuddenly realize, “What we're doing is ...,” as ifthey were seeing themselves in a mirror, andfor those people who think Rokkashomura hasnothing to do with them to be startled to findthemselves in the film. I show up in that mirror,too.

TSUCHIMOTO: I think you can only find aneffective mirror in what comes from that place.There is no way other than to find your mirrorin something that exists locally.

KAMANAKA: This period in which I'm filming

Rokkashomura is not conducive to providingsomething that can serve as that kind of mirror.That’s why what I'm getting is more of adiffused reflection.

TSUCHIMOTO: What I mean by a mirror isn’tsomething that just shows what's dominant in agiven era. I don’t think it’s necessarily bad forthe filmmaker to empathize with the oppositeside, in other words, the promoters of the plant.To explore why they are so easily duped andcarried along.

KAMANAKA: I have a lot of empathy for them.In this day and age, how should we think aboutwhat it means to live in and be happy inRokkashomura? I think we need a differentpoint of view from what we’ve had up to now.But I haven’t found it yet. That’s exactly why Iwant to understand the real thoughts and livesof the people who support nuclear power. It’san aspect that hasn’t had a lot of light shinedon it, and my work is an attempt to see if theycan be understood and empathized with. Butwhen you go back and forth between thepromoters of nuclear energy and thoseopposed, there is a dramatic switch in values,and sometimes it’s terrifying.

TSUCHIMOTO: As you said before, you have toshow in a concrete way that if you take anotherpoint of view, there's another structure thatbecomes visible, and what that is is somethingyou, Kamanaka-san, will have to find.

For me, I would find it in Minamata. WithoutMinamata, I don’t think I could make adocumentary that could stand the test of time,in terms of having an impact on the nextgeneration.

KAMANAKA: Will it be a documentary that canstand the test of time...? But I do think that formy part, I’m doing something challenging.Because it’s not that anything dramatic ishappening, just that these are images taken ofthe everyday life of “ordinary people” who livein the vicinity of a giant nuclear facility. In

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terms of images it’s extremely hard to turn intoa film.

TSUCHIMOTO: There’s a photographer,Higuchi Kenji, who takes pictures of nuclearpower plant workers. What’s impressive abouthim is that he always manages to get onlocation when there is a regularly scheduledinspection of a nuclear power plant. I’ve triedcountless times to do this but never could, so Igave up. But he gets inside. And he takespictures of workers who are rounded up to dothe job.

Inspection

The people who go forward with plans for anuclear power plant are bureaucrats who havenever done more than glance at a site. They arethe kind of people who are completely devotedto “data.” And when plans are handed down ascompany policy, the same ideology usuallyprevails at the local offices. Those who havedoubts and see that “something is wrong” aredown a rung at the site itself. But the people atthat level are also positioned to exploitsubcontractors and sub-subcontractors. Soeven though you talk about people working at aplant, there's a hierarchy. The doubts harboredby such subcontractors never come to thesurface, because they’re not used to makingsuch things public. But if there were anaccident and they had to take responsibility, Iwould want to zero in on what goes on in theirminds.

The Cheapness of Human Life and Dignity –Refusing to Forget Memories of Inhumanity

KAMANAKA: What I feel when I have gone toboth Minamata and Shimokita is the “richness”of Minamata. But I think people who live inRokkashomura and Shimokita Peninsula mustalso feel the same sense of “richness” becausethe Tomari Sea is still full of life.

I th ink there mus t be someth ing inRokkashomura that is similar to the idea of“nusari” in Minamata, but I haven’t reached ityet. Ms. Sugimoto Eiko, who came up earlier inour conversation, is said to have writhed andcursed until she attained a calm—as if a demonhad been washed away. Rokkashomura maystill be in the middle of that process.

I very much feel the strength of the loveMinamata people have for their land and sea. Itbothers me that Shimokita people don’temanate the same kind of love. Even though Ibelieve it must be there.

Monomizaki Point jutting into the Pacific.

TSUCHIMOTO: Do you think it’s the differencebetween newer settlers and long-time natives?

KAMANAKA: But the people of Tomari ought tohave it . They’ve l ived there for manygenerations, gathering all sorts of seaweed andseasonal fish and cooking them according to

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their traditions. It’s become their blood andflesh, so they can’t not love their land. How canthey accept the existence of a nuclear facility?

TSUCHIMOTO: But at first everyone wasagainst it. There were only a tiny number of“spies” who supported it. And then half of thembegan supporting it....

KAMANAKA: Now there’s no trace of that. 99%say, “We’ve accepted it.”

Windfarm. The area receives strong windsfrom both east and west throughout the year.

Two companies are using windpower togenerate electricity.

TSUCHIMOTO: In Minamata, there was a laborunion with thousands of people that in the endwas down to about ten. Those ten people stayedin it until they died. It was really fantastic. Ifyou ask why they were able to stick with it, youfind it had nothing directly to do with the issueof mercury contamination. It was theirmemories of inhumanity, of how the company"didn't treat us like human beings,” that keptthem fighting to the end.

KAMANAKA: It’s because it's Japan that amembership of several thousand dwindles toten, isn't it. There's only a tiny proportion ofJapanese today who would take concrete actionbecause they “cannot forgive it” when theirown humanity is denied. Japan has been likethat ever since the end of the war. And as aresult, neither human rights thinking nordemocracy has taken hold but has beencrushed instead.

Given that context, I think it’s amazing thatKikukawa Keiko has continued to voice her

opposition to the contamination that may occurin Rokkashomura because of the harm it maycause the children of the future. I have greathopes that she may become a mirror for us.

Kikukawa Keiko's Tulip Farm

Whenever something happens, I say I want toreach out and hear not only from opponents butalso from those who want to coexist with thenuclear plant. People who want to coexist withthe plant feel they get unequal treatmentbecause their views are almost never taken upin the media.

TSUCHIMOTO: That’s something we need tofully acknowledge.

KAMANAKA: For instance, the village drycleaner is in favor of the plant, and he saysclearly he made that choice on his own. Whathe says is part of the truth. There aren't thatmany people in the history of Rokkashomurawho have gone in front of a camera and said“I’m in favor" and given their reasons for it.

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TSUCHIMOTO: What part of Rokkashomuradoes he live in?

KAMANAKA: In Tomari. Tomari is really fertile.Every time I go there I’m surprised by what I’mgiven to eat.

TSUCHIMOTO: Tomari has a great fishery.There isn't a fishing cooperative from Ogawarato Shimokita peninsula that can compete withit. Back when I was going there, the fishingcooperative opposed the plant because theythought that if they couldn’t fish any more theycouldn’t support themselves. There’s not muchland that could be sold, and if the fishingindustry failed, it would be disastrous.

KAMANAKA: But now there are very fewpeople who can make their living from fishing.In all my interviews the fishermen complainthat the catch has shrunk, that they can’t catchsquid or fish anymore. I wondered if that wasreally the case, so I did some research. Take forinstance sand lances, which are in season now.The catch is now at 17% of its former level.Squid is down to 60% of its former level. It’sbeen declining since its peak in the 1960s.

The fishermen say the ecological system of theocean has changed, that it’s the fault of globalwarming, and that nuclear power can preventthat...

TSUCHIMOTO: Supporters of nuclear energysay that the radiation from a nuclear powerplant is no higher than what occurs naturally.But as the late Takagi Jinzaburo (citizenscientist, former head of the Citizens’ NuclearInformation Center) says, that’s naturallyoccurring radiation plus the radiation from thepower plant. Although surely it’s true thatJapan’s reactors keep radiation from escapingbetter than those in England.[9]

KAMANAKA: The reprocessing plant atRokkashomura is state-of-the-art, and I believeit has the strictest controls in the world.

TSUCHIMOTO: But even there, accidentshappen, and they lie about it. The accident atTokaimura was tragic. It’s unbelievable thatthey used buckets.

KAMANAKA: Even in the accident at Mihama,there had not been an inspection of the pipingin twenty-seven years....[10]

TSUCHIMOTO: Five people died.

KAMANAKA: But it’s impossible to do regularinspections of a plant’s entire piping system,because there are tens of thousands ofsections, and just to get to some of them wouldtake thirty minutes. There are many pipes thatcan only be reached by crawling through areaswhere radiation exposure must be monitored,and your dosimeter would sound an alarm evenbefore you got there. To do it you would haveto use a lot more people. And then you wouldget more workers who would get radiationpoisoning just from performing inspections. Butthe argument doesn’t go that far. It goes morelike, doing that would cost too much money forthe industry to survive, and in view of thebenefits to society such reforms don’t need tobe carried out.

And at that point, human life suddenly becomescheap. The idea of making ammunition fromdepleted uranium is also an extension of thatcareless way of thinking.

When you think about American soldiers, yourealize they’re also being dragged off to warzones, made to use depleted uraniummunitions, and poisoned by radiation. Thesoldiers are treated as disposable. Even so,they support the government ... It’s the samestory in Rokkashomura. They’re forced tobelieve that it’s the only way they can live....

TSUCHIMOTO: The other day I had aconversation with Kim Dong-won, the directorof the South Korean film Repatriation (2003).When I asked why the former North Koreanpolitical prisoners who appear in that film

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resisted recanting for so long, he said that whatkept them from doing so didn't have so much todo with one political regime or the other, buttheir anger at being insulted and feeling theycouldn’t forgive their humiliating treatment.When Kim Dong-won heard that, he thought tohimself, “That’s it,” and began making the film.At first he was timid around the former politicalprisoners. Even though they were released onbail, these were people labeled “Reds” who hadcome into his neighborhood. And for more thanthirty years they didn’t change their beliefs, sohe thought at first they must be unmoving,ideological hard-liners. But actually it wasn'tso. Their inhumane treatment and thehumiliation they were subjected was repeatedeach day, so it was impossible for that memoryto fade.

KAMANAKA: It wasn’t ideology.

TSUCHIMOTO: It was more like anger againstbeing beaten down as a human being.

The Possibilities of Documentary Film andScreening Activism

KAMANAKA: Documentary film is suited forportraying that kind of thing, I think.

If you try to express the same thing in writing,it necessarily becomes ideological or dramatic.With film, all that appears is a single individualwith anger, and if you watch to see why he’sangry you'll see that it’s an anger that comesfrom his insides. I think documentary is thebetter method to portray that.

What I want to portray is whatever is being feltdeep down by ordinary, nameless people,whether in Rokkashomura or Iraq. And it’s astrange thing to say, but for me that’sprofoundly interesting. With drama you couldportray that more completely, but withdocumentary, in the end, you can only portrayit fleetingly. But that’s what I like about it.

With Hibakusha, I said to people. “Please

screen it on your own,” and it’s been shown inover 300 venues all across the country throughthis "viewer-sponsored screening" method. Ireally like the way you took it upon yourself togo around and show your films on your own,but I don't think that strategy has come downto this generation very well.

TSUCHIMOTO: We were able to do thatbecause it was Minamata. Because your filmachieves a certain standard, it can get aroundby itself. My Minamata films sometimes hadlegs of their own, but in areas where it wascrucial to show them--remote places--it wasn’tpossible for them to get there on their ownmomentum, so in those places, in other words,on the Shiranui coast (where Minamata diseasewas first detected), we did a film tour.

And then to show them to indigenousCanadians we had to get a translator to go on afilm tour, because the Canadian governmentitself hated our showing the film. If you showsuch films to victims, you never know whatthey'll start saying, was their thinking. Andthen for 150 days in the course of two years,we showed the film all over. So you can say Isowed some seeds there, because in Canadaeven today the fight for compensationcontinues and new cases of Minamata arediscovered. So "viewer-sponsored" screening,in my case, is an issue of who will show a filmin a region where no one else is doing it.

KAMANAKA: Without activist screeningbecoming a movement, information that shouldbe transmitted won’t be, because it will neverbe carried on television. Even though there is aflood of information, some information isintentionally hidden.

“What is science?” “Does science really makeus happy?” When I make films, I come upagainst such questions countless times. If youwere to ask if scientists ever ask themselveswhether what they do really makes peoplehappy, you would have to think the answerwould be, probably not . That kind of

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perspective is missing from the get-go.

TSUCHIMOTO: The Zenkyoto movement (AllCampus Joint Struggle Committee) made thatan issue, but they couldn’t carry through withit. Students in the Zenkyoto movementsincerely questioned how they could keep theirknowledge from becoming entangled in andused by the establishment, and from becomingsimply subcontractor

intellectuals for the establishment.

KAMANAKA: By the time I started college, Ihad absolutely no point of contact with thestudent movement. Students around me had nointerest and only thought about how to maketheir lives as students more fun. So my studentlife was one where talking about anythingpolitical made people treat you like an idiot.

But I went to Canada and the U.S., and I thinkit was good because I learned what politicsmeant for me taking the viewpoint of everydaylife. It was not dictated by ideology.

TSUCHIMOTO: How many years were you inthe U.S.?

KAMANAKA: I was in Canada three years andthe U.S. two, for a total of five. People in citizenmovements there aren’t motivated by ideology.They are protesting for their rights, which arebeing trampled or ignored. Back in Japan thereis very little of that kind of thinking, and evenintellectuals consciously avoid saying anythingabout politics. I don’t have an interest in so-called ideology, but I do think that there’ssomething else, something that scientists andintellectuals should be aware of, and I thinkthat it can be called politics.

TSUCHIMOTO: Fundamentally, ideology isn’tsomething that's so poisonous ...

KAMANAKA: True. It’s thought, isn’t it. But asa filmmaker, when I look at the facts right infront of my eyes, I'm almost never seeing from

an ideological standpoint.

TSUCHIMOTO: As for me, that sort of thingwas drilled into the marrow of my bones. Sowhen I’m looking for other ways to graspsomething, I go about it very consciously. Look,I used to spout a cheap politics when I was partof the student movement. I’ve had some soul-searching to do on that.

KAMANAKA: I spent my life as a studentwithout any ties to a movement, and when Ientered the film world and started makingdocumentaries I made works that didn’tincorporate any political or social-movementthemes. I bragged that making films was itselfa sort of activism for me, but then I started tomake films like Hibakusha, and began amovement to ban depleted uranium munitions.After all it’s difficult to separate one’s workfrom one’s activism.

There are a lot of people who don’t watch myfilms as pure visual art. So Hibakusha waspretty much ignored by famous critics,although some individuals wrote about it.People have come to think of it as an “activistmovie.” But as I've screened it in variousplaces, a lot of people from the generalaudience who say they’ve never seen this kindof documentary before write to tell me theirthoughts. And when I read their comments Ithink to myself, “These people have a bettersensibility than the critics” (laughing).

Who to Get Close to, Who to Side With

TSUCHIMOTO: People call me an author whotakes sides. It’s a question of whom I'm goingto side with, how I’m going to cheer them on.In Chua Swee Lin, Exchange Student (1965), Isided with the exchange student. I portrayedMinamata completely from the victims' side. Ithink that’s all right. If you use abstract wordsand pretend to be fair and don’t do anything,don’t say anything, then you’re clearly sidingwith the mainstream of that age.

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KAMANAKA: And in that sense I think there’ssomething risky. When you use documentaryfilm as a mode of expression, standing firm onthe ground where you want to lend yoursupport—I’m finding that really hard right nowas I film Rokkashomura.

TSUCHIMOTO: I don’t necessarily try to makefilms that are useful for the people I think Ishould be close to. Because I want to have afuture together with these people, if I seesomething that’s not right in what they’redoing, I think that saying so clearly is also aform of being on “their side.”

KAMANAKA: Oh yes, I think so too.

TSUCHIMOTO: Probably that’s so. Isn’t thatokay? If you don't take sides, you may not beable to see the true shape of things. If you say,“Let’s think about which is more important,”you sink into relativism.

So in all cases, I side with the murdered overthe murderer, the harmed over the wrongdoer,the poor over the rich.

KAMANAKA: That’s so, but I feel that suchstructures themselves have become extremelyvague.

TSUCHIMOTO: Isn’t that because whetherwe're talking about an individual author or aneducator, things are degenerating overall?There’re fewer critics who are pushing peopleto break new ground for our day and age.

Solidarity in Collaborative Productions

TSUCHIMOTO: Are you going to continue tofollow hibakusha in Iraq?

KAMANAKA: I would like to go to Iraq andmake one more film, but the situation nowmakes that impossible. But there is an Iraqidirector who was making documentary films inthe 1970s. As a Japanese filmmaker, I’ve justrecently decided to support this director by

starting a collaborative project.

TSUCHIMOTO: Oh, that’s good.

KAMANAKA: First we’ll collect 500,000 yen,send a video camera and tapes, and ask him tofilm whatever he likes. When there is a newdevelopment, we’ll collect money again to givesupport. When we get to post-production, thenwe’ll get support from somewhere—and keepexpanding in that way.

I think about how I, as someone whose work isvisual, can help Iraq. I’ve been giving medicalsupport as part of a citizens’ movement thathelped establish JIM-NET (Japan-Iraq MedicalNetwork) and I’ve participated in it as amember. We have gotten donations such asforty million yen from a beer company andbought anti-cancer drugs and sent them tochildren with cancer in Iraq. We are now ableto have a regular staff and have really got offthe ground. And I finally came to see what I cando as a person whose work is visual. It almostgoes without saying, but I realized that “Yeah,there’re filmmakers in Iraq, too!” So I thought,why not help them.

TSUCHIMOTO: My film on Afghanistan (AfghanSpring) is also a collaboration, with Abdul Latif,the Afghan director. I was lucky to havepermission to film the valuable items stored atthe Kabul Museum, but I failed to do theediting at the time. I finally turned it into afilm.

After I finished the English version, I was notsure how to make the Afghan version. Then Ithought, why don’t I ask the Afghan director.So I sent him money and asked him to add thesubtitles. This is also a collaboration, if youwill. It usually costs a lot to film museums suchas the Hermitage, but the Afghanistanauthorities at that time watched us for a whileand then gave us permission to film all thenational treasures without charging a penny.My film is the only one in the world. Since theyallowed me to make the film, I recently donated

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the whole thing, copyright included.

KAMANAKA: I also think if citizens in Japandonate money and produce films made by Iraqipeople, that would be collaboration. It is bestthat Iraqis in Iraq make films and disseminatethem. Because there’s a lot of talent there.Although it’s true that I want to make a film asa foreigner, if there’s a situation in which thepeople there can’t film at all, then supportingthem should be our priority.

TSUCHIMOTO: This is something I say in mybook, but in this age of images, I'm wonderingif it’s a good thing to go filming a foreigncountry. The people who know the country bestare the people who live there. Any country hascameras and broadcasting stations. And therehas been a phenomenon we can ca l l“documentary visual imperialism,” wherepeople used their wad of cash to make othersobey them, like a certain public broadcaster.

KAMANAKA: I basically agree with you. Butthere are also cases when a film is allowed tobe made because it's a foreigner doing it. I dothink that foreigners enter the country as“others” and can tackle some social problemsthat local filmmakers can’t. Still, the basicprinciple should be for people who face theproblems to be the agents of expression.

TSUCHIMOTO: That’s how I think, too. It's aquestion of how we support their work, both interms of content and money. I think that's realsolidarity.

Notes:

(Notes added by the translator are set off inbrackets and marked "Tr.")

[1] The Tokaimura Criticality Accident. Japan’sfirst accident involving a nuclear chainreaction, on Sept. 30, 1999 at the Tokaimurauranium processing plant (fuel conversionplant) operated by JCO Co. Ltd. Three workers

were exposed to high levels of radiation, ofwhom two died from acute radiation exposure.In order to save time, workers preparing fuelfor a high-speed experimental reactor didn’tfollow proper procedures. They added morethan the prescribed amount of uranium to thetank, which resulted in a self-sustainingnuclear fission chain reaction. The criticalitycontinued intermittently for about twentyhours, emitting neutron and gamma radiation.Households within a 350-meter radius of theplant were evacuated, and residents within aone-kilometer radius were asked to stayindoors. Some 700 people, including JCOemployees, local residents and firefighterswere irradiated.

[2] [The Precautionary Principle often cited byenvironmentalists addresses just suchsituations: "When an activity raises threats ofharm to human health or the environment,precautionary measures should be taken even ifsome cause and effect relationships are notfully established scientifically. In this contextthe proponent of an activity, rather than thepublic, should bear the burden of proof." Tr.]

[3] Supreme Court ruling on Minamata. OnOctober 15, 2004, in the first judicial finding ofgovernment responsibility for Minamatadisease, Japan’s Supreme Court ruled in favorof a group of people who had not been officiallyrecognized as victims of Minamata disease andordered compensation be paid. The plaintiffshad moved to the Kansai region from theShiranui coast of Kumamoto and Kagoshimaprefectures. Both the central government andthe two prefectural governments, the courtsaid, failed to exercise their authority toregulate Chisso Corp., and thus exacerbatedthe damage from the disease. The state and theprefectures were thus determined to have lostthe case that had begun forty-eight yearsearlier with the first public reports in 1956about Minamata disease. The court alsorejected a 1952 decision by the state thatpeople with neurological damage also needed

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to have symptoms such as impaired mobility oreyesight in order to be officially certified asMinamata disease victims. It certified that theplaintiffs in the case, whose appeals forcertification had been rejected, did indeed haveMinamata disease.

[4] [The Mutsu-Ogawara Development Projectemerged in 1969 as part of the ComprehensiveNational Development Plan, epitomizing policyemerging from the period of high-growtheconomics. Under this plan, several regionalmega-industrial centers were to be created, allto be linked by high-speed trains and superhighways. The Mutsu-Ogawara project,involving an enormous tract of land in Aomori,including Rokkasho, was originally centered ona petrochemical complex. From the outset, theproject was riddled with difficulties—from thechanging economic landscape due to several oilshocks and the rise of the yen to questionsabout environmental and archeologicalpreservation. The Project has never beenabandoned, however, and now lives on as anuclear-waste storage and reprocessing site.For the larger context of this and other suchprojects, see Gavan McCormack, "Breaking theIron Tr iangle , " New Lef t Rev iew 13(http://www.newleftreview.org/?view=2365)(January-February 2002). Tr.]

[4] [Ogawa Shinsuke (1935-1992) is anothercelebrated documentarist best known for hisseries on the student-farmer Sanrizuka airportstruggle. Motivated by the years spent livingwith the farmers resisting the construction ofwhat is now known as Narita Airport as well asthe quelling of the protest, he and hisproduction company eventually moved to arural area in Yamagata in northern Japan andturned their attention to documenting thedetails of the agricultural existence whilepursuing the history of postwar Japan asref lected in the v i l lage. Find a br iefi n t r o d u c t i o n h e r e(http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/journal/vol4no2/jpnfilm.html) (accessed 1 November 2007). Tr.]

[5] [Iwanami Film Productions was thebrainchild of Hokkaido University ProfessorNakaya Ukichiro and Kobayashi Isamu ofIwanami Publishers, who wanted to make newkinds of science films. After the company wasestablished in 1950, it attracted such talentedmembers as Hani Susumu, Kuroki Kazuo,Tawara Soichiro (commentator), and a host ofphotographers, translators, cameramen, andproducers, resulting in many prizewinningworks. The company filed for bankruptcy in1998. Its collection was sold to Hitachi MediaProductions in 2000. For information onTokieda Toshie and the atmosphere at Iwanamiduring its formative years, see this website(http://www.yidff.jp/docbox/21/box21-1-1-e.html); for information on Haneda Sumiko, see thisw e b s i t e(http://www.yidff.jp/99/cat015/99c046-e.html)(both accessed 1 November 2007). Tr.]

[6] [Ishimure Michiko is the author of Kugaijodo, arguably the most famous literary workon Minamata. It is now available in Englishtranslation by Livia Monnet from the Center forJapanese Studies, University of Michigan, asParadise in the Sea of Sorrow. See Ishimure's"Lake of Heaven , Dams, and Japan'sT r a n s f o r m a t i o n "(https://apjjf.org/../../../products/details/1741) inJapan Focus. Tr.]

[7] [For two accounts of Kamei (1908-1987),who went to Leningrad for study in 1928, andwho, despite the precautions Tsuchimoto refersto here, ended up being jailed for FightingS o l d i e r s ( 1 9 3 9 ) , s e e h e r e(http://www.cfnavarra.es/puntodevista/pdv_web/secciones/retrospectivas/06_ficha_document_ing.asp?f i lm=36&i=2&s=81) and here(http://www.yidff.jp/news/01/010807-2-e.html),both accessed 1 November 2007. Tr.]

[8] Rokkashomura mayor ’s su ic ide .Rokkashomura Mayor Hashimoto Hisashicommitted suicide on May 18, 2002, after hewas questioned by the Aomori Prefectural

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Police in connection with a bribery caserelating to public construction in the village.There is great demand for public constructionin Rokkashomura , where there i s aconcentration of nuclear fuel cycle facilitiesand huge sums invested in construction.

[9] [Tsuchimoto is surely referring to Sellafield,a nuclear site on the Irish Sea in Britain, ownedsince April 2005 by the British NuclearDecomissioning Authority. For a report onleakage that forced the closing of the Thorpreprocessing plant in Sellafield in 2005, seeh e r e(http://www.guardian.co.uk/nuclear/article/0,2763,1479527,00.html) (accessed 1 November2007). Kamanaka takes her camera andmicrophone to Sellafield and produces asobering comparison to Rokkasho in her film.Tr.]

[10] Mihama Accident. On August 9, 2004,there was an accident at the Mihama No. 3nuclear power station operated by KansaiElectric Power Corporation (KEPCO) in FukuiPrefecture. A secondary piping (diameter fifty-six centimeters) rupture occurred during plantoperation, releasing hot steam and hot water at140º C. This was the worst accident in thehistory of Japanese power plants, involving 111workers, five of whom died from full-bodyburns and six others of whom were injured tovarying degrees. In the twenty-seven years of

the plant’s operation since 1976, the damagedpiping had been neither checked nor replaced.All the casualties were employees of the localsub-subcontractor, and it is clear that theaccident was the result of cost reductions bymanagement at the expense of safety.

Recorded at Cine Associe in Suginami, Tokyo,April 20, 2005.

This is a slightly abridged translation of adialogue between Kamanaka Hitomi andTsuchimoto Noriaki published in KamanakaHitomi, Hibakusha: From the Scene ofDocumentary Filmmaking (Tokyo: Kage Shobo,2006). Translated by Ann Saphir with the kindpermission of the participants and thepublisher.

Ann Saphir is a Chicago-based journalist.Norma Field teaches in the Department of EastAsian Languages & Civilizations at theUniversity of Chicago and is a Japan Focusassociate. She thanks Aiko Kojima for researchassistance, Scott Mehl for editorial assistance,and the Japan Committee of the University ofChicago and DePaul University, most especiallyProfessors Miho Matsugu and Yuki Miyamoto,for their efforts to collaborate in realizing Ms.Kamanaka's visit to Chicago.

Posted at Focus on December 23, 2007.