The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom (2011)
*** 1/2 (out of 4)
Extremely well-made and sensitive look at a group of survivors of the March 11, 2011 tsunami that hit Japan. This documentary hears their stories of survival during the first half of the film and then the second half turns to the people's belief in the cherry blossom and what it meant to them after such a tragedy. The start of this movie contains some of the most dramatic footage you're going to see in a documentary or anything that Hollywood could create. The film starts as a group of people are on a hill looking over their town when they see the high tides starting to come in. The next couple minutes are just downright shocking in their destruction because from this one vantage point we see the entire town destroyed in the matter of seconds. This footage is just so shocking and heartbreaking because this isn't a Hollywood disaster movie but instead it's something real. There's even footage of people in the hit area trying to race for the hill with the water quickly working towards them. This footage here is just so heartbreaking and then we see that same spot a month after the disaster. This is a pretty hard subject to do a documentary on but director Lucy Walker does a terrific job at telling these sad stories and then giving the film a more uplifting beat as we hear the history of the cherry blossom and why they mean so much to the people. This is certainly one of the better documentaries out there and at 40-minutes it runs a very quick pace and really delivers all sorts of emotions.
