Film review: Homeland examines the aftermath of Fukushima
The first feature film about Fukushima since the 2011 nuclear power plant disaster does not contain sensational scenarios of misery. In fact, Homeland is so calm, quiet and restrained that it risks boring impatient viewers. Yet it also is capable of enthralling, thanks to a delicate plot, charming actors and beautiful camera work.
HOMELAND
Starring: Kenichi Matsuyama, Yuko Tanaka, Seiyo Uchino
Director: Nao Kubota
Category: IIB (Japanese)
The first feature film about Fukushima since the 2011 nuclear power plant disaster does not contain sensational scenarios of misery. In fact, Homeland is so calm, quiet and restrained that it risks boring impatient viewers. Yet it also is capable of enthralling, thanks to a delicate plot, charming actors and beautiful camera work.
Jiro Sawada (Kenichi Matsuyama) works the land in an otherwise deserted area. After two decades in Tokyo, he has returned home to an abandoned farming village in a no-go zone in Fukushima prefecture.
Jiro refuses to let his estranged family know of his return, and the audience gradually learns why, through conversations between his older half-brother Soichi (Seiyo Uchino, formerly called Masaaki Uchino) and Soichi's wife Misa (Sakura Ando).
They all live in temporary housing outside the zone, with their young daughter and Soichi's stepmother Tomiko (Yuko Tanaka).
The family is in disarray. Forced from his ancestral land, Soichi can't work out what to do with his life. Fukushima's farmers are discriminated against, as their produce is considered contaminated. Jiro picks up his farming skills again, meticulously grows his own rice on the polluted soil and lives without electricity in absolute solitude, until he is joined by his high-school mate Kitamura (Takashi Yamanaka), who returns for his own reasons.