Yamagata: Memories of Kawamoto Teruo

[Abe' Mark Nornes]

The screening of Tsuchimoto Noriaki's _Memories of Kawamoto
Teruo---Minamata: the Person Who Dug the Well_ was the most powerful
experience of the week for me. This is Tsuchimoto's first documentary on
Minamata in 13 years, and the first time he's recognized the virtues of
video. He calls it his home video version, because in terms of production
value it looks something like a first student film. In this sense, it could
be thrown into the Japanese genre of private films to interesting effect,
because unlike the rest of this genre Tsuchimoto's film is passionately
engaged and deeply political.

It looks this way because it wasn't meant for public showing. He originally
wanted to make a 16mm film, but for various reasons the plan fell apart.
Because of the subject matter, he felt compelled to DO SOMETHING and
produced this documentary in a matter of months. He basically meant only to
send tapes to whoever asked for one, and showed it at Yamagata at the
request of the Video Act! people who were programming an event on video
activism.

Kawamura was one of the key activists in the fight against Chisso chemical
company and the central government to get official recognition and
reparations for the mercury poisoning in Minamata. Originally, there were
just a handful of recognized victims (167 if I remember correctly; I lost my
notes dammit), but thanks to Kawamura's efforts, this number went into the
thousands. Kawamura died in February, and this is Tsuchimoto's tribute to
him and expression of frustration with the people of Minamata and by
extention with Japan itself.

The tape is framed by the New Year's cards that Tsuchimoto received fr4om
Kawamura in the last couple years, with a long middle section of Kawamura's
greatests hits from the Minamata Series. Some great shots of, for example,
Kawamura sitting cross-legged on a luxurious conference table, just inches
away from the face of Chisso's CEO who maintains a rock-solid expression in
the face of Kawamura's harange.

Watching it, I understand why Tsuchimoto hesistated to show it publicly.
It's rough and simple. But his talk afterwards was  complex and
heartrending. The last New Year's card, months before his death, had a
hand-written scrawl that he only wrote to Tsuchimoto: "Those who dug the
well have been forgotten." This shook up Tsuchimoto, and he was on the verge
of breaking down throughout his talk. For all of Kawamura's and Tsuchimoto's
work, no one seemed to appreciate it. The people of Minamata turned their
collective backs on them. For example, Kawamura kept running for public
office but lost even though a vote from every victim would have meant
certain victory (he won the last one by default). In survey's Minamata
citizens have expressed the desire to strike the name of their city from the
disease. Activists' efforts to preserve the chemical factory via the UN's
historical sites list----as has been done with Auschwitz and
Hiroshima----are going no where.

Everyone wondered why Tsuchimoto was not producing more films on Minamata,
and this is his answer. He felt silenced by Minamata's own efforts to
suppress their history. Ultimately, Tsuchimoto placed the blame on the whole
of Japan. He left us with the depressing sense that he had come to a road
block, immense and insurmountable. ...but he still made this documentary and
sent it out into the world.

One could see this tape, and Tsuchimoto's dilemma, as an expression of the
inflexibility of old paradigms of Old and New Left politics...the fact that
they have carried into the present day with little transformation, and
dominate public conceptions of politics. This has something to do with
Matsue's conflation of "policy" and "politics" and his fervent desire to
avoid looking "political."

Markus