Kashima Paradise
Benie Deswarte and Yann Le Masson | 1973 | France, Japan | 107’ | Digital | French and Japanese spoken, English subtitles
Kashima Paradise was developed as part of a sociological analysis of rural and industrial Japan by Bénie Deswarte, who co-directed the film with Yann Le Masson. The project aimed to combine a theoretical field research and thesis on the paradoxes and contradictions inherent in capitalism and modernisation in 1970s Japan with a filmed document of people’s lives, testimonies and fierce resistance. It examines the economic and environmental effects on an agricultural community of a new giant industrial complex in Kashima and highlights the struggle of farmers, students and workers in Sanrizuka against the construction of the Narita International Airport. Kashima Paradise was one of the films that brought the resistance movement of the Sanrizuka farmers to the attention of Western audiences and was widely distributed and discussed in the 1970s. In a letter to Le Masson in 1975, Chris Marker, who wrote the film’s text and for whom the Sanrizuka struggle played an essential role, said about the film: “As we know, the symbol of cinema’s magical privilege is often the ‘time-lapse flower’, this intrusion of another time into the familiar. This may be the first film in which history is filmed like a flower”.
Copy from the collection of La Cinémathèque de Toulouse and courtesy of Mathilde Le Masson.
Image courtesy of La Cinémathèque de Toulouse.
From the treatment of the film by Bénie Deswarte and Yann Le Masson:
“Narita — A square packed with people. Shoulder to shoulder, peasants, students, workers, intellectuals. At the podium, one after another, speakers from all corners of Japan. One represents people from Yokohama fighting against pollution; another, farmers from Akita standing up against the expropriation of their land. A third speaks of struggles against the military base in Tachikawa; a woman reports on the anti-pollution activities of women’s groups in Osaka. Flags snap in the wind. Yamaguchi, the peasant leader well known by the old Mogi during past struggles, gives a fiery speech: ‘Land expropriation, pollution, military bases — it’s big Capital that’s responsible!’ Activists speak of Nagasaki, Nihonbara, Kitafuji, Ibaragi, Niigata, Awaji. Those leading the struggle in Narita itself explain their demands — how the large company planning the airport is trying to pressure them into selling their land. But they say: ‘We refuse their money. We will fight to the death! Under our fields and our rice paddies, we will dig tunnels and bury ourselves in them! We will build bunkers and barricade ourselves inside. We want to remain farmers. We want to keep the land. Let them take back the airports occupied by the American military. Let them take back those used by Japan’s Self-Defence Forces! But our land — we will fight to the very end to protect it.” Thousands are listening. The farmers sit on the ground, massive and unyielding. Some wear Maoist badges. The students wear helmets — red, blue, black, and white. Autumn winds sweep through the square, stir up the dust, and carry the words away into the distance.
The Streets of Kashima — In the streets of Kashima, men and women march in protest — for the first time — against pollution. Kuma-san, Ushiki’s deputy, gave a speech before the demonstration began: “We rise to drive out the pollution that is devastating the place where we live! The prefectural governor had promised: The development of Kashima will be based on the harmonious growth of industry and agriculture, a ‘zero pollution’ development… But reality reveals itself in the roar of factories and clouds of dust, in a sea fouled with oil, in roads jammed with cars. This is the inevitable result of collusion between the prefectural authorities and the major capitalist corporations.” The demonstrators carry illustrated placards: Trees devoured by factories, residents fed toxic fumes, monstrous fish. The crowd winds through streets packed with trucks and bulldozers, wandering through mist and smoke.”
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