Make Art Not War
By JOYCE TSE
Rafu Staff Writer
Saturday, April 21, 2007

Telling documentary explores the trauma of war and the soothing nature of art.

HIROKO MASUIKE
Artist Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani, 86, is the focus of “The Cats of Mirikitani,” which is showing Saturday, May 5, at 4 p.m. at the Director’s Guild of America.

“The Cats of Mirikitani” is an in­sightful documentary that provides a raw insider’s perspective into one man’s life. Just as Mirikitani’s rich and tumul­tuous history flows out onto his sheets of drawing paper, he slowly begins opening up to Hattendorf, describing his birth in Sacramento in 1920 and a childhood in Hiroshima, before his departure to San Francisco in 1937 to pursue an art career and avoid joining the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy. He later moved to Seattle to join his sister, Kazuko, but was inevitably swept up in the mass internment of thousands of Japanese Americans and sent to Tule Lake after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941.

Over the course of the documentary, the long-lasting effects of the internment experience on Mirikitani’s life grow apparent. Not only was he separated from his sister during camp, but he, and every seven out of 10 internees at Tule Lake were convinced to renounce their U.S. citizenship, which is why when Hattendorf meets Mirikitani, he knows of no relatives, has no home, owns no passport and receives no Social Security checks in his old age.

Mirikitani’s outrage at being im­prisoned as a U.S. citizen for three-and-a-half years and then stripped of citizenship are evident as he describes the U.S. government as “crooked” or as “garbage” during conversations with Hattendorf. This animosity grows more fierce when Sept. 11, 2001 arrives and Hattendorf’s filming of “The Cats of Mirikitani” comes to include footage of the World Trade Center towers burning and neighbors looking on in shock.

Hattendorf narrates the documen­tary, filling in places where Mirikitani cannot; he no longer speaks clearly, mostly speaking in broken phrases that are never direct or clear. She describes the toxic clouds descending on the city after the terrorist attacks, the streets of her normally bustling neighborhood deserted, except for Mirikitani, whom she finds in the dark, coughing.

The documentary picks up momentum when Hattendorf invites Mirikitani into her home because she is worried about him. This brings the two closer and draws Mirikitani out of his shell further, while also revealing Hattendorf’s compassion and patience for her subject. It is likely this turn of events is what makes “The Cats of Mirikitani” the in-depth piece that it is. Without Hattendorf and Mirikitani living together, the documentary might have lacked the opportunity to delve as deeply into who Mirikitani is, and might have missed the striking parallels between 9/11, the attack on Harbor and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Watching Hattendorf’s footage of the 9/11 attacks and of Mirikitani sitting in her cramped apartment watching news cover­age of the events as they unfold leaves us staring intently into Mirikitani’s eyes, looking for a reaction. His motto is “make art not war,” and he has already witnessed the devastating effects that nuclear bomb­ings and wartime incarceration have had on humanity.

In the days following the 9/11 attacks, Mirikitani’s art turns darker as he draws depictions of Hiroshima burning and men, women and children dying. He also draws the World Trade Center, smoke billow­ing out of gaping holes in the side of the buildings. These are in stark contrast to the bright orange Hiroshima kaki (persim­mons) he draws to show Hattendorf the fruit he loved eating as a child.

As Hattendorf comes to know Miriki­tani as an ever-present roommate, she patiently chips away at his outer shell to understand where his anger stems from and why he is so unwilling to talk about Social Security benefits and citizenship. We soon learn of more misfortunes that left the artist homeless.

It turns out Mirikitani, who still has nothing after his citizenship papers were stripped from him in the 1940s, is eli­gible for Social Security and Medicare. Hattendorf helps him recover these benefits and even obtains copies of Mirikitani’s birth certificate and docu­mentation—all things that were returned to former internees when Congress and President Richard Nixon repealed the renunciation law in 1971. Mirikitani never received his papers because he couldn’t be tracked down.

With its home-video quality, “The Cats of Mirikitani” is part biography, part treasure hunt and part mystery to be solved, with Hattendorf playing the roles of detective, trying to unlock the mysteries of Mirikitani’s past, and facilitator, making things happen for Mirikitani. It’s hard to describe the overwhelming joy that Mirikitani’s first visit to Tule Lake and reunion with his sister in more than 60 years brings. It is the long-awaited resolution Mirikitani needed after years of bitterness that has fueled his anger and distrust toward the U.S. government. This film is more than an astonishingly vivid look into a man’s life, but it is also an immensely satisfying story that ends with heal­ing. If anything, Hattendorf’s project of learning more about the JA artist in her neighborhood undoubtedly reveals more than she—or we—might ever have dreamed of.
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“The Cats of Mirikitani” (2006) was written and directed by Linda Hattendorf, and premiered at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival. Running time: 75 minutes. Showing at Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival on Satur­day, May 5, at 4 p.m. at the Director’s Guild of America, 7920 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood. For information visit www.thecatsofmirikitani.com and www.vconline.org/festival/index.cfm.