Koreeda Hirokazu

KIOKU GA USHINAWARETA TOKI

WITHOUT MEMORY
Koreeda Hirokazu
J 1996
84 min
V'04

Severe vitamine deficiency can cause Wernickes Encephalopathy (WE), a brain disorder which results in loss of short-term memory. Sekine Hiroshi was hospitalized in 1992 for a stomach operation: for five weeks he was fed on a glucose drip which starved his body of vitamins. He emerged with WE, and has been struggling to cope with it ever since. So has his wife Miwa and sons Yu and Taku. It took three years to persuade the authorities that Hiroshi needed (and deserved) a disability pension and even longer for the government to admit in public that economies in the health service have cost at least 41 lives and grievously damaged others. Koreedas documentary, made with Hiroshi and his family over the years 1994 to 1996, is in part an angry protest against medical malpractice and bureaucratic inertia. More strikingly, it offers a vision stronger than anything William Gibson has dreamed up of what it might mean to wake up every morning wondering who your wife and children are. No-one who sees it will ever take memory for granted again. (Tony Rayns)

Credits
  • Sekine Hiroshi und seine Familie
  • Koreeda Hirokazu
  • Honda Shigeru
  • Matoike Masashi
  • Koreeda Hirokazu
  • Kasamatsu Yasuhiro
TV Man Union Inc. 30-13 Motoyoyogi-cho, Shibuya-ku Tokyo 151-0062, Japan T 3 5478 8138 F 3 5478 8141 nishikawa@tvu.co.jp

TV Man Union Inc. 30-13 Motoyoyogi-cho, Shibuya-ku Tokyo 151-0062, Japan T 3 5478 8138 F 3 5478 8141 nishikawa@tvu.co.jp

Video (Betacam SP)
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