By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Linda Hattendorf
Country: united_states
Year: 2007
Running time: 74
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0799976/
Michael says: “Most filmmakers should be so lucky to come across Jimmy Mirikitani, an elderly Japanese-American man who
was living on the streets of lower Manhattan in 2001. A self-proclaimed ‘Grand Master’ of an artist (with the work to back it up), he offered to make one of his striking, elaborate drawings for Linda Hattendorf. She repeatedly returned to film him and learned more about his fascinating, difficult life. Born in Sacramento but raised in Hiroshima, Mirikitani returned to the states shortly before World War II and was wrongly placed in an internment camp for three years, despite his American citizenship.
On 9/11, she took him into her apartment, offering him shelter from the dust and debris.
Hattendorf’s low-budget but heartfelt documentary charts her friendship with Mirikitani. While she draws far too obvious parallels between her subject’s past and anti-Arab sentiment following the World Trade Center attacks, she also emphasizes how a little information and assistance can turn a life like his around. The closing sequences, which involve Mirikitani revisiting and confronting his past, are unsentimental and moving. 3.5 cats”