It doesn’t seem like anything remotely close to a reunion would transpire as bodies of the dead pile up in “Reunion” (“Itai Asu e no Tokakan”), last year’s Japanese film release which tackles events based on the aftermath of the Great East Earthquake and Tsunami of 2011. It is one of the 16 contemporary films in this year’s Eiga Sai, with theme focusing on family.
Set in the mountainside community of Kamaishi in Iwate Prefecture, the film opens with a montage of scenes shortly before calamity struck. The sunlit imagery then changes its composition, but without the bells and whistles used by disaster movies from the West.
There will be no visible blood and torn flesh, or Technicolor digital wizardry like the harrowing 10-minute tsunami sequence in the 2012 Oscar Best Film nominee “The Impossible”; and the surge of fire, lava and clouds of ash in the mainstream flick “Dante’s Peak” (1997).
Instead, the filmmakers convey the wrath of natural disasters through sound and, most strikingly, the lack thereof, such as the silence accompanying a montage of rooms and spaces whose contents have been toppled over by the quake.
The dead will make noise, too. Frozen jaw muscles make awkward crunching sound when a dentist opens the mouth for dental identification. Bones crack when hands are forcefully clasped over the chest. When the recovery team accidentally drops one end of a body bag, out comes the sound of gushing water as the body inside releases what has bloated and weighed it down.
Bleak atmosphere
Naoki Kayano’s cinematography reinforces the cold, bleak atmosphere with limited streams of light and an ashen color palette. The paleness contrasts with the stark-white coffins and the social workers’ uniforms.
“Reunion” makes a strong case against Japanese stoicism, a conjecture supplied by media coverage which emphasized the order, structure and efficiency by which citizens and the government conducted relief and rescue efforts.
In the film, geography may have spared a community from massive damage and loss of infrastructure, but the people have not been spared from anguish, frustration and helplessness. They await survivors but what rescuers deliver are the dead.
The first time Tsuneo Aiba (Toshiyuki Nishida), one of the prominent characters, visits the temporary morgue in a school gymnasium, he falls on his knees and wails at the sight before him. So many bodies—bloated and covered in filth—have been haphazardly concealed with blue plastic and laid out on the wet, muddied floor of the gym.
‘Encoffineer’
A social worker at a daycare facility for the elderly and former “encoffineer,” funeral worker, Aiba volunteers his services and provides a semblance of structure at the morgue.
He inspires others into action, starting with a fellow social worker, Yuko Terui (Mirai Shida), who despairs at having survived the calamity when she sees the bodies of children who have been separated from their parents.
Terui picks up a mop to clean a path from the entrance and creates a makeshift altar for relatives who might want to burn incense when they come to claim their deceased.
Aiba also instructs the rescue and recovery team how to massage the dead, so they can be made to look calm and serene by adjusting facial muscles, and repositioning arms and legs.
Volunteers also emulate how he gently speaks to the dead. “We should treat the dead as if they are alive, so they can get their humanity back,” says Aiba.
With no electricity, crematorium services have become limited. Only four or five bodies can be “sent off” each day and it took two months before the morgue can be emptied.
In that space of time, Aiba and the team of volunteers with him at the morgue have not only helped the dead reclaim their humanity, but also allowed them a modest but poignant reunion with their families.
More than a chronicle of insurmountable obstacles after a calamity, at its core “Reunion” is about real individuals who make the community their family.
Eiga Sai 2014 is ongoing at Shangri-La Plaza Cineplex until July 13. It goes to Davao, at Abreeza Mall Cinema on July 25-27 and FDCP Cinematheque, July 29-Aug. 3; and Ayala Center Cinema 4, Cebu City, Aug. 6-10. For screening schedules, visit www.jfmo.org.ph.
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