JAPAN: Japanese film on Fukushima hits silver screen

Record ID: 275807

  • Title: JAPAN: Japanese film on Fukushima hits silver screen
  • Date: 5th March 2014
  • Summary: TOKYO, JAPAN (RECENT) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF DIRECTOR AND ACTORS OF "HOMELAND" POSING FOR PHOTOGRAPHS (SOUNDBITE) (Japanese) DIRECTOR OF "HOMELAND", NAO KUBOTA, SAYING: "This film does not dare to present any answers. It is a timeless story of one family." AUDIENCE APPLAUDING (SOUNDBITE) (Japanese) DIRECTOR OF "HOMELAND", NAO KUBOTA, SAYING: "It's not like you can smell an
  • Embargoed: 20th March 2014 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Japan
  • City:
  • Country: Japan
  • Topics: Disasters
  • Reuters ID: LVA8TE97GVANE8TWCN73YIR6S8D4
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  • Story Text: With scenes filmed in nuclear no-man's land and cramped temporary housing, the first mass-market movie set in Fukushima has, this week, appeared in cinemas across Japan.
    A Japanese farming family is forced from their home by the Fukushima nuclear disaster, living in cramped temporary housing under stress as they wait for permission to return to land worked by their ancestors for generations.
    That is the all-too-real backdrop of "Homeland", the first Japanese mass-market film set in Fukushima since the world's worst nuclear crisis in 25 years made the area's name infamous.
    Shown at the recent Berlin Film Festival, the movie - called "Ieji" (pronounced ee-aye-gee) in Japanese and meaning "the road home" - features some scenes shot in areas once declared no-go zones by the government due to high radiation levels.
    The film centres on Jiro, the long-estranged second son of a family who have fled their ancestral farm. While his family waits in cramped temporary housing, Jiro secretly moves back into the farm deep inside Fukushima's nuclear no-go zone.
    There is widespread debate in Japan about whether the nation's reactors, all of which were shut down after the disaster, should be restarted or scrapped for good, but director Nao Kubota said he opted to tell a more human story.
    "This film does not dare to present any answers. It is a timeless story of one family," Kubota said at the film's premiere.
    On March 11, 2011, a massive offshore earthquake sent tsunami tearing through villages in northeastern Japan, setting off meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant that irradiated a wide swathe of countryside and forced more than 150,000 people from their homes.
    Some scenes were shot in the empty streets of an area once declared an off-limits exclusion zone by the government due to high radiation levels.
    Kubota contrasts the open space and silence of the zone with other scenes filmed in a noisy, barracks-like line of temporary housing.
    "It's not like you can smell anything or see any different colours, you can't see or physically feel anything new. Nothing's really changed, but there's a sort of menacing fear. And then on the other hand, the temporary homes are packed in there and you wonder whether people can really live in that cramped space," Kubota, who has a background in documentaries, said.
    "I wanted to stop the situation fading from our minds, I wanted to make a film that would be relevant for a long time to come, that people could watch in 10, 20, 50 or even 100 years and see that this sort of claustrophobic situation came about. That's what I want everyone to feel, and it's for that reason it's not anti-nuclear," he added.
    The touchiness of the nuclear issue tends to cause backers to shun anything too critical. Even stronger reasons to tread softly are that film revenues are falling in Japan and viewers are averse to movies with too heavy a political line.
    When asked if his views on nuclear power had changed after starring as Jiro in the film, actor Ken'ichi Matsuyama didn't enter the debate.
    "The movie's neither positive nor negative about nuclear power. And as an individual, I don't think I should comment on whether the film made me think it's a bad thing or not. It's a very difficult issue. Personally I'm not really thinking about it at all."
    Some directors have faced a similar dilemma in adapting the Fukushima disaster for film.
    Director Sion Sono got around it by setting his movie, the 2012 "Land of Hope", in an unspecified future and the fictional "Nagashima prefecture." However, he was still forced to look overseas for funding after his usual Japan-based investors said nuclear power was a taboo too far.
    "People don't want to think about the nuclear issue. They want to watch a movie that makes them cry. I don't know whether it's down to the audience or the producers, but right now there's this feeling that people just don't want to watch troublesome movies," Sono said.
    However, Kubota's "Homeland" - however subtle its message - has struck a nerve with at least some viewers.
    "It made me remember that nothing's really solved, despite the fact that politics is moving on. Our Prime minister is plugging nuclear power as though nothing happened in Fukushima. The movie made me feel there's something wrong with that," said 68-year-old pensioner Takashi Nakamura.
    "Homeland" opened in Japan on March 1.
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