Minamata

Johnny Depp stars in a real-life drama about a Japanese tragedy and an American hero.

Minami and Johnny Depp

Rarely does a single film contain so much to admire and so much to question. It comes about due to the imbalance between the two true stories that the film is trying to tell simultaneously and in no way is it down to the fact that its star, Johnny Depp, who is also one of the film’s producers, is currently in the spotlight over his private life. I take the view that a critic’s concern is only with the work and not with any other issues of a personal nature (it’s for individual filmgoers to make up their minds whether or not such matters make a boycott of their work desirable).

Minamata is the name of the fishing community on the Japanese island of Kyushu where, back in 1956, reports of an unknown disease of the central nervous system emerged.  By 1971 it had so developed as to make worldwide headlines. The cause had been identified as mercury poisoning in the fish which was increasingly devastating the local people who ate them. It left them seriously incapacitated if it did not kill them. The Chisso Company had a chemical plant in the area and the claim that arose was that the company’s discharged waste was the source of what had happened. As its title would lead you to expect, this new film does indeed deal with this subject and among its end credits it includes references to other later instances of pollution. In that way it underlines the fact that, even if the history recounted here is fifty years old, the issue is still one of major concern. Indeed, the film stands as an always timely warning against big companies that have enough influence to get away with dangerous infringement of safety standards.

In fact, this particular tale has been told on screen before in a remarkable Japanese documentary seen in 1972. That film was Tsuchimoto Norieki’s Minamata - The Victims and Their World which lived up to its title by presenting matters from the viewpoint of the many victims. It may have had its limitations (there was less care in the shaping of the material than was desirable, especially for a documentary that dared to last for around two and a half hours), but it was admirable in giving touching voice to those suffering and in showing the valiant efforts being made to get some admission of liability out of the Chisso Company.

Now we have this attempt to approach the subject through a drama using actors and what becomes clear is that once divorced from the special pathos of documentary actuality the particular circumstances of the case do not yield a rich narrative. We have had other films that took on real-life instances of pollution by a company through chemicals which were far more readily effective in plot terms (one thinks of Erin Brockovich in 2000 and more recently Todd Haynes’s Dark Waters). Perhaps in recognition of this, the writers of Minamata have set out to combine the tale of the victims with what is almost a bio-pic about the man whose photographs in Life magazine brought about full international awareness of what had happened in Minamata. This man is W. Eugene Smith, the role played here by Depp.

In theory at least, adding an extra related layer of real-life drama might have been an astute move. Smith had made his name with his photographs of action during the Second World War but had subsequently messed up his life (his wife had left him and taken their children and he had increasingly turned to alcohol). Consequently, when he persuaded his editor at Life (Bill Nighy) to send him out to Japan to take on the Minamata disaster as a photojournalist, Smith was attempting to climb out of his personal abyss and, against the odds, he succeeded. One of the pictures that resulted, Tomoko Uemura in Her Bath, would become among the most notable that he ever took. Furthermore, it was during this period that he would find in Aileen Mioko (Minami), a Japanese-American, a new wife.

In the event, however, using Smith’s story in this way proves problematic. Making this element so prominent creates the impression that this is being treated as the central thread and that is disconcerting because Smith’s attempted rehabilitation is far less important than the suffering brought about by the pollution occasioned by the Chisso Company. Furthermore, the screenplay sometimes causes the personal tale to slip into scenes that have a fictional feel - one example involves a Japanese boy being instrumental in causing Smith at his lowest ebb to re-engage and carry his project through. It is, perhaps, characteristic of the film’s approach that, while it makes a point of showing the growing bond between Smith and Aileen, the written updates at the end of the film make no mention of the fact that they separated in the mid-seventies.

That makes for quite a lot on the debit side, but other aspects of Minamata are splendid. Whatever the weaknesses in the telling, there’s no doubt but that this old history deserves to be remembered both for its own sake and as a warning against comparable events being allowed to occur. It can also be said that what Smith achieved stands as a useful reminder of the power of honest journalism and that’s welcome today when the press is so often under attack. Since in Minamata the quality of Smith’s pictures is a key matter, it is apt that the film should illustrate so splendidly the magnificent work of its own photographer, Benoît Delhomme. Aiding the film too are a number of well-judged supporting performances from Japanese players including most prominently Minami who, as Aileen, has an engaging presence. As for Bill Nighy, he is on his very best form. Nevertheless, the film belongs to Depp: as W. Eugene Smith he sinks himself into the role becoming almost unrecognisable in the process. It may be ironic that he should achieve this now, but there is no doubt that Depp's performance in Minamata is one of the best in his whole career.

MANSEL STIMPSON

Cast: Johnny Depp, Minami, Akiko Iwase, Tadanobu Asano, Bill Nighy, Jun Kunimura, Hiroyuki Sanada, Yuzu Aoki, Ryô Kase, Yosuke Hosoi, Katherine Jenkins, Lily Robinson, Masayoshi Haneda, Kenta Ogawa.

Dir Andrew Levitas, Pro Sam Sarkar, Kevan Van Thompson, Johnny Depp, Bill Johnson, Gabrielle Tana and Andrew Levitas, Screenplay David Kessler, Stephen Deuters, Andrew Levitas and Jason Forman, Ph Benoît Delhomme, Pro Des Tom Foden, Ed Nathan Nugent, Music Ryuichi Sakamoto, Costumes Momirka Bailovic.

Metalwork Pictures/Head Gear Films/Infinitum Nihil/HanWay Films-Vertigo Releasing.
115 mins. UK/USA/United Arab Emirates. 2020. Rel: 13 August 2021. Cert. 15.