Funahashi, Atsushi. 2012. Nuclear Nation. Documentary film.
http://nuclearnation.jp/en/
“Atomic energy makes our town and society prosperous,” reads a sign over a
prominent archway in the small town of Futaba, Fukushima. The camera pans over a
grey landscape of rubble, empty public buildings, and dozens of cows lying deceased and
mummified in barn stalls. Such scenes in Nuclear Nation render the declared
benevolence of atomic energy painfully ironic. They also make clear director Atsushi
Funahashi’s intent: to situate Japan’s present nuclear disaster within the context of
Japan’s promising nuclear past.
Funahashi explores Japan’s changing relationship with nuclear energy solely
through the eyes of Futaba residents. As the mayor of the town shows the camera old
photographs, we learn that Futaba welcomed Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO)
and its nuclear energy plans in the 1960s. With a nuclear plant, explains the mayor, came
generous government subsidies, and Futaba quickly morphed from a small farming
village to a modern city supported by a major industry. However, the value of the plants
quickly depreciated and Futaba was on the verge of bankruptcy. In the 1990s the town
accepted two new plants and TEPCO’s promises of payment—the latter of which never
materialized—in an effort to pull itself out of debt. This narrative of the past, which
brings us up to the 2011 disaster, sheds light on the complicated but intricate relationship
that Futaba’s people and local government, like other small nuclear towns, have had with
the nuclear energy industry and its leading power companies.
Funahashi documents a radically changed attitude toward nuclear energy in a
post-3/11 world by following the people of Futaba for a year, beginning in the immediate
aftermath of the disaster. His focus on one town’s experience is a strength of the film, for
it allows Funahashi to explore the effects of the Fukushima Daiichi disaster on both a
community and an individual level. He highlights a handful of residents, weaving their
individual stories together as they experience a year of unfamiliarity, grief, anger, and,
surprisingly, optimism and acceptance. Forced to evacuate their town and seek refuge in
a high school, more than a thousand residents must sleep in the school’s gymnasium and
eat nothing but bento. The television seems to always be on and tuned into a station
playing national news about the disaster, none of which mentions Futaba. The residents
later stage a protest against the Liberal Democratic Party and TEPCO for their general
negligence. Throughout all of this Funahashi records incredible interviews; the residents
candidly express their past reliance on nuclear power and present frustration with the
industry, government, and options for the future—none of which fulfill the residents’
desire to return to their “homeland.”
This narrative allows Nuclear Nation to address many questions, but perhaps most
significant is the question of when disaster begins and ends. By taking us back in time,
Funahashi places a potential starting point for Fukushima at the arrival of nuclear power
in the region forty years ago. His view of an ending point is a little less clear; he
documents the disaster for a year but leaves the residents’ stories open-ended and their
new lives in new places unsettled. Nevertheless, by the end of the film it becomes clear
that Nuclear Nation is not a story about triumphing over disaster—that is, not a story with
a happy ending; rather, it is a story about the break-up of a community and the making of
an environmental ghost town. For educators and students who wish to learn about the
aftermath of Fukushima, about Japan’s forty-year history with nuclear energy, and about
the nature of disaster more generally, Nuclear Nation is an excellent choice.
-Ashanti Shih, Yale University
