Surviving the Tsunami – Documentary on the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster (2013)

Once amongst avid admirers of nuclear plants and their managers, Aunt Kuniko and her community are on the verge of disintegration in the aftermath of the nuclear catastrophe. Director Kyoko Miyake, having lived outside of Japan for more than a decade, revisits Fukushima. She wants to find out the fate of her family’s hometown Namie that used to be her childhood idyll with friendly beaches and laughing neighbours. 今天, Namie is completely destroyed and, because of the radiation threat, might never be rebuilt.

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Following her aunt Kuniko, Miyake starts asking questions about her nostalgic childhood memories and the harsh realities of the Japanese economic beliefs, and their sacrifices. Why aren’t people ‘sacrificed’ more angry? Are the western media right in depicting Japanese as too obedient? The film unearths the uncomfortable past that prevents things from being so clear-cut in the present, while slowly aunt Kuniko changes her attitude towards the state and its system – never losing her optimism and her positive outlook for long but instead gaining a healthy skepticism for everything she’s being told.

The film introduces the present conflicts that the town faces through the eyes of Miyake’s aunt Kuniko, once a hyperactive businesswoman operating a wedding chapel, a funeral parlor and a bakery. Kuniko and her husband, like many other residents, have evacuated to an area just outside the exclusion zone, while waiting for the publication of a radiation map telling which areas of Namie will be soon safe to return to. The delay in the publication forces them to live in limbo, while being torn between the hope to return home and the need to move on with life. All three sons have moved away with their families from the region for fear of radiation. Should Kuniko stay to give the businesses another try or should they leave it all behind?

Another conflict that the town has to face emerges: its past with failed nuclear ambitions. Miyake remembers conversations she overheard as a child about the unpopular anti-nuclear protesters… Gradually it becomes clear that the town’s history of attempting to invite a power plant is still dictating its present.

The first anniversary of the Tsunami marks the change in aunt Kuniko who decides to take her life back into her own hands. First, she gets a hair cut, then she starts to take exercise class, and reading books about radiation makes her join anti-nuclear protests herself. She is more skeptical and critical of the authorities than ever before now.

When aunt Kuniko receives the radiation map, she realizes that returning to Namie is a hopeless dream. She makes a final goodbye visit to her old house in the radiated area and decides to rebuild her life somewhere else. Sadness and disappointment are inevitable, but in her optimistic way – she is active again.

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