Minamata

Minamata

War photographer W. Eugene Smith travels back to Japan where he documents the devastating effect of mercury poisoning in coastal communities.

  • Released: 2020-03-13
  • Runtime: 115 minutes
  • Genre: Drama, History
  • Stars: Johnny Depp, Minami, Hiroyuki Sanada, Bill Nighy, Jun Kunimura, Ryo Kase, Tadanobu Asano, Akiko Iwase, Katherine Jenkins, Lily Robinson, Ayumi Takano
  • Director: Andrew Levitas
 Comments
  • YvirusS - 19 May 2023
    A missed opportunity!
    Ideally, I wouldn't be very critical of a human-interest story, but the tragedy of Minamata is such an important lesson for all us humans, so any art work based on the tragedy needs thorough critical assessment.

    With all due respect to Eugene's work and with the utmost respect to the victims of this gory man-made tragedy, the movie falls short of doing true justice to the actual Minamata story. Some powerful imagery and soul-stirring shots/scenes are present, but the narration, acting, and screenwriting felt haphazard. Poor attention to detail. The backstory was under-developed and focus on unimportant bits does injustice to the real story. Also, the deviation from true events to satisfy cinematic liberty feels unreasonable.

    Common guys, you have an incredible story to tell here; you should have buckled up as you don't get a chance every day to portray something as important as this.

    Given the sensitive nature of the Minamata tragedy, I would like to reiterate that the 3/5 strictly represents only the movie---a missed opportunity; it is no way a rating for the associated ghastly tragedy, real-events, or the truth.
  • turbo-53 - 24 July 2022
    Powerful film. Oscar worthy.
    Going in I confess I feared this might be one of those slow artsy fartsy movies that sleepafies.

    On the contrary. It's beautiful. Moving. Johnny Depp does it justice.

    It ended with me mute, lump in my throat, unable to speak.

    With a lone tear falling down my left cheek.

    And absolutely chuffed that this brilliant work was buried in NA until now.
  • michellelalouve - 24 June 2022
    Emotional
    It was a very moving film based on events in Japan. If you love history or history based movies give it a watch. Johnny depp really put some love into this movie, like his others of course, but he doesn't overcast the true message behind the film.