Minamata

In 1971 the photographer W. Eugene Smith takes an assignment from Life and travels to Minamata, the Japanese town poisoned by the mercury the Chisso plant had been discharging into the water for decades. Johnny Depp plays Smith late in life, drunk and in debt. At the centre sits his most famous image, Tomoko Uemura being bathed by her mother. What the film does not tell you is the reason it remains contested. The family did not want the photograph published in the years after their daughter's death, and Smith's former wife Aileen Mioko Smith signed the rights to Tomoko's parents in 1998 precisely so it would stop appearing. It premiered at Berlin in 2020, then sat unreleased in the United States while MGM declined to set a date amid the controversies around Depp. It finally opened in February 2022 on twenty seven screens. Who it is for: viewers drawn to environmental disaster and photojournalism. Who it is not for: anyone weary of the outsider saviour structure.