"The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom" is an American documentary and the second work by writer and director Lucy Walker. Despite the title, this one is exclusively in the Japanese language, so you may want to get a good set of subtitles unless you speak that one. It runs for 39 minutes, but there is an extended version that i watched and this one runs for over 50 minutes. There is basically a clean cut in this film just like there is in the title. A bit over the first half is about the horrible tsunami that killed thousands of people and killed even more people's hopes, while the second half focuses on the beauty and meaning of cherry blossoms. Obviously the latter is seen as some kind of symbol for hope and revival after the tragic events and I must say this kind of metaphor really only works partially. Of course you should not expect this film to seek for solutions and ways to keep events like this from happening in the future, but it's really more about the simple people and their way back to some kind of happiness that obviously does not include scientific studies at all. So yeah, it is an okay documentary that includes some touching interviews early on, but despite the beautiful looks of the blossoms, the movie gets considerably weaker in the second half and almost feels a bit pretentious. Still overall, I give it a thumbs-up, but I guess the Oscar nomination (losing to "Saving Face") may have been a bit too much.
Informative and beautiful, even if it does not get its message through completely
4 June 2017
Warning: Spoilers