Yamagata: Memories of Kawamoto Teruo

[Livia Monnet]

Markus,how can one get a copy of Tsuchimoto's Memories of Kawamoto Teruo.Is
there an address one can contact him at.Thanks.  At 19:00 99-10-27 +0900,
you wrote:
>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
>
Livia Monnet

University of Montreal
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