Synopsis

Young German woman Marie escapes to Fukushima to change her life. Working with the organization Clowns4Help, she hopes to bring joy to 2011 nuclear disaster survivors, some still living in emergency shelters. Marie soon realizes she‘s absolutely unsuited to the task of making tragedy less wearisome. But instead of running away, Marie decides to stay with cantankerous old Satomi, the last geisha of Fukushima, who of her own accord has decided to retreat back to her ruined house in the formerly radioactive Exclusion Zone. Two women who couldn‘t be more different, but who – each in her own way – are trapped in the past and must learn to liberate themselves from guilt and the burden of memory.

Program Note

Marie, whose life is full of concerns, sleeps with one of
 her boyfriend\'s male friends before her marriage. After
 ruining the wedding, she tries to find the meaning of
 her life by consoling the refugees living in Fukusima,
 refugees damaged by an earthquake and a tsunami,
 by doing magic shows. She meets Satomi, a geisha
 who wants to come back home, a home contaminated
 by radioactive materials. Marie helps her return
 home, and they form a friendship bridging cultures, a
 generation gap, and different nationalities.
 The aesthetic of unusualness that Doris DÖRRIE
 manifests shines through the methods employed
 in building the emotions between the two women.
 Fukusima\'s exclusion zone is a restricted district
 where daily life has collapsed and where the struggle
 for survival has become everyday life, a reality beyond
 the reality the rest of us live in.
 Doris DÖRRIE tries turning this unreality to reality by
 suppressing the overpowering atmosphere existing in
 the exclusion zone by using black-and-white images.
 The memories of despairing experiences and the
 landscape in Fukusima are aligned and lead them to
 the conclusion that \"Nonetheless, we\'ve got to live\".
 Using the stale cliché of Japanese horror movies, the
 alien atmosphere of the geisha, and the curiosity that
 the westerner has for foreign cultures, the mentality of
 human beings and the authorial distinctiveness has
 been manifested on the screen once again. If it\'s not
 her, who would imagine such humor in Fukusima?
 [Sunah KIM]