Film Review – Minamata

Johnny Depp is known for fully inhabiting the characters he portrays. It’s been his obsession since the 1990s, and it’s largely worked for him, turning in some amazing performances and a few uncomfortably showy ones along the way. For “Minamata,” the actor seeks to step inside the life of photojournalist W. Eugene Smith, a respected but troubled professional who provided coverage of “Minamata disease” in the early 1970s, with mercury pollution destroying lives around a Japanese village located near a chemical plant. Depp tries to hide himself once again, and he successfully communicates the strange ways of Smith, who was a man of guilt and little self-control, but he had a gift with a camera, using it to provide the world with visions of life and hardships, with this particular case of unimaginable suffering allowing co-writer/director Andrew Levitas (“Lullaby”) to detail a greater understanding of industrial pollution and corporate malice. Depp is strong in “Minamata,” but it’s the larger story of suffering that’s most gripping. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com