(Lucid Dreaming/Madman)

Art that changes the world

When New Yorker Linda Hattendorf finds Jimmy Mirikitani, a Japanese-American artist in his 80s, living on the street near her home she decides to make him the subject of a documentary. A self-proclaimed ‘grand master artist’, the vague but still vital Mirikitani proves fascinating. The pictures he sells have two main subjects: cats and the internment camp he was placed in during WWII along with thousands of other Japanese-Americans. Hattendorf teases a tragic story out of the artist, who was separated from his family both by the camps and by the bombing of Hiroshima, where most of them lived. Another catastrophe changes his life while the World Trade Center is destroyed only blocks away while Hattendorf is making the documentary. In the aftermath she finds Mirikitani alone and coughing in the clouds of toxic dust and takes him into her home. This is what makes The Cats Of Mirikitani truly extraordinary. The homeless artist goes from being the subject of her film to a part of her life. That decision to throw away ideals of remaining objective and distant and instead involving herself in his problems, helping him find his family and somewhere permanent to stay, transforms what would have been an interesting character study into an amazing story of the difference one person can make.

****˝

JODY MACGREGOR

Be first to comment on this article

Write Comment
Comments are submitted for possible publication on the condition that they may be edited. Poster's IP addresses are logged.
Name:
Comment:
Code:*