Half-Life in Fukushima

The 2011 nuclear plant disaster in Fukushima, Japan, resulted in a 20-kilometer “exclusion zone” around the facility that people are prohibited from entering without official permission while cleanup crews continue their slow, laborious work. The title of Mark Olexa and Francesca Scalisi's documentary refers to the length of time that the dangerous radiation will persist in the area, but also describes the life of a farmer named Naoto, one of few locals who have not evacuated the region. Living just outside the zone with his elderly father in the increasingly forlorn hope that the cleanup will eventually allow them to return to their land, Naoto periodically drives through the deserted streets of his hometown, where prerecorded messages fill the air advising former residents to take care when visiting their erstwhile homes. Sometimes Naoto goes to a decrepit barn where he practices driving golf balls into the overgrown fields or he simply observes the flora and fauna (in one scene he enters a deserted karaoke bar). Naoto's narration serves as an elegy to what he has lost, while shots of debris abandoned during the rush to escape and tubs stacked high with contaminated soil offer mute testimony to the scale of destruction. While the filmmakers do not directly address the dangers of nuclear power, that message seems obvious here. Half-Life in Fukushima is slow and repetitive, but its nightmarish portrait of a once-thriving community that has literally been snuffed out carries substantial cumulative power. A strong optional purchase. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)