Minamata: The Victims and Their World (水俣 患者さんとその世界, 1971)

It is a sad irony that the Fukushima nuclear disaster should occur in the same year that Noriaki Tsuchimoto’s groundbreaking documentary Minamata: The Victims and Their World (水俣 患者さんとその世界/Minamata: Kanja-san to sono sekai, 1971) got its first release on DVD with English subtitles.  For the narrative of corporations and politicians putting financial gain ahead of risks to public health and safety is not a new one in Japan.  History is repeating itself yet again – only the players and the type of poison have changed.

Minamata: The Victims and Their World is the first in a series of documentaries that Tsuchimoto made documenting the plight of the victims of Minamata disease, their families, and their fight for redress.  Minamata disease takes its name from the city in Kumamoto prefecture where the disease was identified in 1956.  The disease is a neurological syndrome caused by severe mercury poisoning.  The local chemical factory run by the Chisso Corporation polluted Minamata Bay and the Shiranui Sea with industrial waste water containing the highly poisonous chemical compound methylmercury between 1932 and 1968.

Noriaki Tshuchimoto’s documentary opens with a series of title cards that quietly lay out the bare facts of how the people of Minamata came to be poisoned by mercury.  The documentary then shifts its focus from the facts and figures to the stories of the victims and their families.  Fishermen talk of how they knew something was wrong when fish began behaving strangely in the sea and local cats that ate the fish started going insane.  Family members share the agonies endured by their loved ones before they died of the disease.  Doctors, teachers, and physiotherapists compare and contrast the illness to other known conditions such as cerebral palsy.  The most chilling legacy is the stories of the children with congenital Minamata disease, who were poisoned while in the womb.  Their physical and mental challenges are so great that there is little hope for rehabilitation.

The interviews are paced throughout the film like the ebb and flow of the tide.  Emotionally harrowing personal testimonies are book-ended by quiet sequences that give the spectator a moment to pause and reflect.  These quiet moments are often montages that capture the natural beauty of the landscape and the sea of the region.  With each new story of pain and loss, the tension slowly builds until the film’s dramatic climax in which the victims and their families go to the Chisso biannual shareholders meeting to confront the company president and demand that he publicly take responsibility for his company’s crimes against humanity and the environment.

The mainstream documentary style in Japan – even today – is one in which an authoritative, voice-of-god narrator tells the spectator how to interpret the images they are being shown.  As authority figures had betrayed the people of Minamata, Tsuchimoto wisely decided to foreground the voices and faces of the victims themselves in this documentary.  According to Sachiko Mizuno in the supplementary material for the DVD release, the victims had resisted the efforts of television documentary crew because of their deeply held suspicions about the media (p.6) It becomes apparent while watching the documentary that Tsuchimoto has won over the people with his friendly, sincere manner.  He occasionally appears in the film, usually partly or wholly off-frame, holding a microphone in his hand and gently coaxing his subjects to talk to him.

The film is particularly interesting for its use of sound.  The lack of synch between the image and the soundtrack is initially distracting.  Sound was a big problem for low budget documentary filmmakers of the day as it was recorded separately from the image.  The asynchronous sound provided Tsuchimoto with the opportunity to play with the soundtrack in innovative ways.  As his subjects tell us their stories, we are treated to montages of images of the dead, their families, and their homes.  The asynchronicity forces us to listen more closely to the words and to study the face of the speaker more carefully.  Although each family has their own individual tale of suffering and loss to tell, taken together one gets the sense of a community of simple, hardworking people who have been unjustly made into outcasts in the town where their families have lived and fished for generations.  The story of their fight for justice is not only of historical import, but their determination against all odds is also inspiring for the many people who are today suffering at the hands of an unfeeling bureaucracy in the southernmost prefecture of Tohoku.  

Minamata: The Victims and Their World is one of four documentaries by Noriaki Tsuchimoto (土本典昭, 1928-2008) released by Zakka Films on DVD this year. It has optional English language subtitles and is accompanied by an essay by Abé Mark Nornes (U of Michigan) and film commentaries by Sachiko Mizuno (Kanazawa U).   Individuals can purchase this DVD for a reasonable price from independent film distributor Film Baby. Institutions should contact Zakka Films directly for purchasing information

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2011

Momotaro’s Sea Eagle (桃太郎の海鷲, 1942)

World War II inspired many governments around the world to sponsor animated propaganda to rally support on the home front. Some, like the films of Norman McLaren in Canada, were aimed at encouraging people to support the war financially – see V for Victory (1941), Five for Four (1942) , and Dollar Dance, 1943 (NFB Overview). Disturbingly in the United States (see Ducktators), Japan, and Germany (see Der Störenfried), propagandists decided to target children for their campaigns by using characters from popular folk tales and movies. 

   

In Japan, the legend of Momotaro, the Peach Boy, was commandeered by propagandists as a patriotic hero. In the original tale, Momotaro was found by an elderly couple floating down the river in a peach. When he grew up, he became unusually strong. One day, Momotaro decides to Demon Island in order to defeat the demons that are terrorizing the people there and the elderly woman who adopted him gives him millet dumplings to take with him. Along the way, he encounters a dog, a monkey, and a pheasant and he gives them millet dumplings so that they will join him on his mission. They defeat the demons and return home with wonderful treasures. 

Momotaro’s Sea Eagle (桃太郎の海鷲/Momotarō no umiwashi, 1942) reframes this story in a manner designed to encourage people to celebrate the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor as a victory against evil forces. Unlike the original tale where Momotaro actually engages in battle with the dog, monkey, and pheasant, in Momotaro’s Sea Eagle, Momotaro assumes the role of a military leader who orders his troops of dogs, monkeys, and pheasants into battle while he follows the action from the battleship. “I, your captain,” Momotaro pronounces, “will await your return.” Momotaro towers above the animals who are quite childlike in both appearance and behaviour. 

The film sets up a number of gags to endear young audiences on the side of the Japanese forces. The ground crew are rabbits who use their floppy ears to make signals. On one of the planes, a dog and a monkey play with building blocks that are in danger of collapsing. The Japanese, the film suggests, are on the side of all that is good and natural in the world. At one point, they even befriend a baby sea eagle and his parent in a bizarre sequence that takes place on the wing of one of the aircraft – as if there would be no wind while in flight! 

The conceit is that Hawaii is Demon Island and that the inhabitants there are the demons of legend. When the attack commences, we are disturbingly shown events from the point of view of the people on the ground. The Americans are depicted in human, not animal form, but the horror of the event is subverted into slapstick comedy. The central American character resembles Bluto from the popular Fleischer Studio’s Popeye series. These films were well-known and loved by Japanese children in the 1930s and the character would have been immediately recognizable as Popeye’s nemesis. In the unlikely circumstance that a child did not recognize him as Bluto, he is clearly demarcated as “bad” because he has demon horns and a tail and is associated with heavy drinking. 

Apart from the fact that it is disquieting to see an event in which 2,402 Americans were killed and more than a thousand wounded depicted as if it were an extended slapstick comedy routine, there are a number of historical inaccuracies promoted by the film. Two of the most obvious are the suggestion that some Japanese troops were on the group and set airplanes on fire by hand (a chain of monkeys, like the S-shaped Barrel of Moneys toy game, descends from an airplane window to do this with matches) and worse, the suggestion that all the Japanese returned home safely. In actuality 55 Japanese airmen and 9 submariners were killed in action that day. 

The attack on Pearl Harbor  with Americans depicted as fat demons.

A great deal of the film is taken up with showing off Japanese military might. It takes many minutes for action to get underway because the opening scenes are so concerned with instilling a sense of awe and pride in the technology of war.  The film was billed at the time as being Japan’s first feature-length animation – which was a bit of a stretch considering that the film is only 37 minutes long. The true recipient of this title was the sequel to this film Momotaro’s Divine Sea Warriors (Mitsuyo Seo, 1944). 

Momotaro’s Sea Eagle is the centrepiece of Zakka Films’ DVD The Roots of Japanese Anime which also includes a bonus extra of posters from the time advertising the film as “A thrilling, unparalleled naval battle that makes the red and blue demons tremble!” The posters also suggest that Momotaro’s army will not only be fighting Bluto but also Popeye and Betty Boop, declaring: “Roosevelt and the American gangster Popeye are no match. They face Momotaro’s troops and end up all wet.” Popeye and Betty Boop do not appear in the film itself.  Most disturbingly, the ads proclaim that the film is not only sponsored by the Naval Ministry but recommended by the Ministry of Education “as a living textbook for your children.” From today’s perspective it is certainly a valuable film to watch in order to teach about how propaganda is produced and disseminated. 

Apart from the troubling nature of the subject matter, the film is historically significant in terms of demonstrating how sophisticated cel animation had become in Japan by the 1940s.  It is important to note that the politics of the film do not reflect that of the director, Mitsuyo Seo (瀬尾 光世, 1911-2011), who actually had left-leaning political sympathies and was pressured into making propaganda films.  Tragically, due to historical forces beyond his control, Seo was saddled with these beautifully animated but deeply propagandistic films as his legacy to animation history.  Seo does at least have the distinction of being the first Japanese animator to use multiplane camera and his work is said to have influenced Osamu Tezuka.  It was also interesting to see puppet animation pioneer Tadahito Mochinaga listed in the credits for this film.  

The Zakka Films DVD includes informative historical information by Jasper Sharp (Midnight Eye) and Aaron Gerow (Yale U) which help contextualize the film. The Roots of Japanese Anime has optional English subtitles and comes with an informative booklet featuring an historical overview by  and film notes by  Individuals can purchase this DVD for a reasonable price from independent film distributor Film Baby. Institutions should contact Zakka Films directly for purchasing information

Film Credits:

Sponsored by the Naval Ministry 

Production Company: Art Film Production (Geijutsu Eigasha) 

Producer: Einosuke Omura 

Director and DOP: Mitsuyo Seo 

Music: Noboru Ito Animation Technique and Composition: 

Tadahito Mochinaga, Toshihiko Tanabe, 

Tamako Hashimoto, Shizuyo Tsukamoto 

Special Effects: Hajime Kimura

.

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2011

Danemon Ban – The Monster Exterminator (塙団右衛門化物退治の巻, 1935)

One of the reasons that animation really took off in Japan is the wealth of Japanese folklore that lends itself well to the medium. While Japanese ghost stories adapt well to live action movies, animation is the ideal medium for bringing to life the monsters and shapeshifting animals of Japanese legend.

The animated short Danemon Ban – The Monster Exterminator (塙団右衛門化物退治の巻/Ban Danemon – Shojoji no tanuki-bayashi, 1935) brings together both folklore and historical legends. The central character, Danemon Ban (塙 団右衛門), is an historical figure from the late Sengoku / early Edo period. Born Naoyuki Ban (塙 直之, 1567-1615). He was a samurai general legendary for his enormous strength and leadership qualities. Danemon Ban – The Monster Exterminator has fun with the legend of Danemon Ban using his rumoured love of drinking and fighting to set up amusing gags. He strides confidently onto the screen on his extra-tall geta (wooden sandals) and pushes through a gaggle of men to read a sign posted at the foot of an oversized, pagoda-like castle and reads that there is a reward of 1000 ryo for the man who defeats the monster in the haunted mansion.

In order to read the sign this legend of old amusingly squints and pulls out some spectacles because it turns out that Ban is short sighted. Then he announces that he will defeat the monster not in order to be a hero, but to pay for his sake. The gags continue inside the haunted castle. Danemon Ban discovers a beautiful woman with a Betty Boop-esque face dressed in a kimono and bound with rope. When he tries to free her, she reveals herself to be a monster and her magic causes him to fall asleep. A one-eyed serpent monster descends from the ceiling and licks his head so that the woman can shave him bald. A humiliating ritual, which I suspect is a reference to the tradition of a samurai’s hair being shorn off in defeat.

In the next scene it is revealed that these two monsters haunting the mansion are actually tanuki (raccoon dogs) in disguise. In Japanese legends, tanuki are shapeshifters who are notorious for causing trouble in the human world. When Danemon Ban wakes, they transform themselves into human beings, with the head tanuki turning himself into the popular one-armed ronin Sazen Tange announcing “I am the tanuki movie star!” (read previous review of Chameko’s Day for more on Sazen Tange). Danemon Ban must defeat the tanuki in order to win the 1000 ryo reward.

Animated by Yoshitaro Kataoka (片岡芳太郎), Danemon Ban – Monster Exterminator was written by Kazumitsu Masuda and partly inspired by the song “Raccoon Dogs on a Moonlit Night” (Shojoji no tanuki-bayashi) by Ujo Nobushi and Shinpei Nakayama. Kataoka uses some wonderfully innovative techniques in this film. For example, when Danemon Ban approaches the mansion, he hears the woman crying for help and Kataoka animates her words as they travel to Ban’s ears. The way in which Ban’s horror at seeing the woman transform into a monster is depicted by using the shadow of her hand over his shocked face and the vortex depicting his dizziness as the magic puts him to sleep reminded me of the special effect techniques that Alfred Hitchcock would use many years later in films like Spellbound (1945), Psycho (1960) and Vertigo (1958). Simple, but highly effective ways of visually depicting extreme emotional states.  I also really liked the overhead shots of Dan taking down circle after circle of disguised tanuki with his club.  In reminded me of a phenakistoscope.  

There is a shorter benshi cut of Danemon Ban – Monster Exterminator extant and available on the Digital Meme Japanese Anime Classic Collection Box Set. The benshi performance on this version is done by  Midori Sawato. It is not as good as seeing her perform live – which I did at the First Benshi Performance that I ever attended back in 2006 – but it’s the next best thing. 

The sound version of Danemon Ban – Monster Exterminator appears on the Zakka Films DVD The Roots of Japanese Anime: Until the End of WWII. Of the 8 works appearing on this DVD, Danemon Ban is in the worst condition. The years have not been kind to early Japanese animation and cinema – with the vast majority of films produced pre-WWII being either lost or existing only in fragmentary form. Despite the heavy scratching and flashing on this extant print of Danemon Ban, the beauty and originality of Kataoka and his animation team still shines through. We are indeed lucky that the efforts of Japanese archivists have at least managed to preserve this delightful film.

The Roots of Japanese Anime has optional English subtitles and comes with an informative booklet featuring an historical overview by Jasper Sharp (Midnight Eye) and film notes by Aaron Gerow (Yale U). Individuals can purchase this DVD for a reasonable price from independent film distributor Film Baby. Institutions should contact Zakka Films directly for purchasing information.

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2011