Minamata's Meaning Today: Memory and Prayer
TSUCHIMOTO Noriaki
I was spurred as a documentary filmmaker to devote the work of half my life to the making of 16 films on Minamata when, through reading a 1965 article in the Kumamoto nichinichi shinbun (a regional newspaper), I began to understand that the congenital patients were the greatest tragedy of Minamata disease. This inspired me to make the television film The Children of Minamata Are Living (1965). The congenital patients it depicted were still young children of seven or eight years old. Over thirty years later, they are now around 45 years old, at what is called the halfway point in life. Involved with them, making films and television shows exposing the failures and stalemates in the Minamata disease incident and its medical, political, and social suppression, in what seems a short period of time I have made 16 films and television shows.
This might seem remarkable, but it is because throughout this period, in every film, there has been one continuous theme I have had to document.
From the beginning I tried to make films that raised problems and showed the immediate effects over them, but at the same time I emphasized their universality, and I did this more and more with each succeeding film. Perhaps this is why these documentary films on Minamata disease became known. I was able to make films that spoke to the world, such as Minamatafs Message to the World, which is being brought to this summit conference. I became able to speak to the world by the films. But this is still not enough. As evidence, I am not confident that my films on Minamata disease will be able to fulfill this role at this conference.
gRemembrance is strengthh is a fundamental belief of those of us who are documentary filmmakers. Films have a history of just over a hundred years; they are still young. But the media of film and television have been developed to the point where they can be preserved for hundreds of years. The development of film with a hundred-year guarantee, and of digital video, have made this possible. These have made documentary images semipermanent. This is something I never imagined when I began making films about Minamata.
What is more, in my 35 years of filming the victims of Minamata disease, gthe archetype of pollution,h they have displayed a life force far greater than I expected. I have seen this with my own eyes.
Even now, as they constantly endure the pain of their disease, the life force of these patients who are so closely involved with the sea is powerful, and their view of life has in fact become a personal philosophy. The so-called professional gphilosophersh (and I am one of them) must be shocked. These are the almost religious words resulting from the sufferings of the pollution victims. I call this the gspiritualism of Minamata.h Put another way it is gprayer.h We must listen to this. I would like this to be widely known as the gmessage of Minamata.h
Many activists warn of a glife-threatening crisis.h In other words, they see this as the canary in the mine, warning of the total extinction of human beings. At the time when many people were dying in rapid succession, this warning was proven correct. But the chronic patients have not always been so easily seen as such gevidence.h
Desperately shouting gI wonft die,h they struggle to keep living. They gliveh while struggling in various ways with the symptoms of Minamata disease, which, it is said, gmodern medicine cannot cure.h And what is common to these patients is Buddhism, or animism, or one of many forms of gprayer.h
Believing in and encouraged by the curative power of the sea and the regenerative power of fish, small animals, and plants, they make gprayerh their task?this is the spiritual world of Minamatafs patients today. Because it is an invisible world, this cannot be depicted well in my documentary films. There is nothing I can do but put down my camera and pray. I consider that this is Minamata of the gmemory and prayerh.
(Translated by Timothy S. George)
TSUCHIMOTO Noriaki
Documentary filmmaker. Resident of Tokyo.
Born in 1928 in Gifu Prefecture, Noriaki Tsuchimoto grew up in Nagoya. Moved to Tokyo in 1938.
He graduated from Waseda University, the law department in 1946. In 1956, he entered the movie world as a part-tine employee of Iwanami Movie. In 1957 he became a freelance. Since then he has filmed as a director numerous movies about Minamata disease.
He is also an author of some books. Writing: hMovie, A Task for Creaturesh, gA Record in Adversitiesh, gA Trip to Discover Movies ? A Record of The First Year of Minamata Disease Era in Shiranui Seah, gA Pilgrimage to Minamata Moviesh, gA Crisis of the Sea of Okhotskh
Filming: gAn Assistant Locomotive Engineerh, gMinamata Kids are Livingh, gA History of Partisansh, gPatients and their Worldh, gMinamata Disease, 20yearsh, gThe Sea and Moonsh, gAn Illustrated Story of Minamatah, gPeople who dug a Wellh, gMinamata Disease, 30yearshResident of Ashikita Meshima, Kumamoto Prefecture.
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