Fukushima 50 or Battleship Yamato

From YouTube

Apart from the fact that major characters are all men, both events have one common feature: they all did their best, given the circumstances. By the time the 50 were tasked to initiate the emergency cooling operation, the power was lost and the hydrogen explosion and meltdown was a foregone conclusion. Yamato set sail when the war was all but lost. Still the Japanese audience wants a heroic struggle there.

Is it too much to ask the Japanese film industry to create a little departure from the history? The plant manager does not have to be a man, for examle. A woman might have introduced a different perspective into the disaster or events leading to it. Or low level foreign workers might have made a difference.

That dramatization may be a step too far, in light of the Japanese audience mentality now, which has not changed much from 1945. Yet, the Japanese movie industry in the 50s had the imagination and power to bring the audience beyond the realm of realism. Ozu‘s central character in Tokyo Story, Shuichi, speaks warmly and openly with his widowed daughter in law about her future, something Japanese men then (and perhaps now) are not good at. Revival of that imagination and power is what we need.