Minamata Mandala

As part of the retrospective Hara Kazuo

Hara Kazuo, JP 2020, 372 min, jap. original language

While Hara's earlier works mostly dealt with radical, individual outsider positions, his later works are repeatedly concerned with collectively organized resistance.

'Minamata Mandala', which took 15 years to shoot, focuses on a variety of people and fates surrounding the environmental catastrophe in the Minamata region, which was caused by industry and only gradually dealt with. Between 1932 and 1968, the Chisso Corporation discharged wastewater containing methylmercury into the sea, poisoning the local population and causing severe neurological damage, mutations and deaths. Hara accompanies the patients' decades-long fight for their right to compensation, explains the context and takes a clear position: on the side of the working, sick and disabled people who dare to stand up against an entire system.