Sebastian Mez
Germany | 2014 | 14 min
World premiere
Language : no dialogue
Two years after his journey through what remains of the nuclear disaster at Fukushima, the filmmaker seeks to find the right distance in relation to the images he brought back. The use of fade-out and the prevailing sound that suggests the presence of chaos offer an interpretation of the apocalypse as a fusion of all things into indivisible, indefinite matter.
On 11 March 2011, following an earthquake in the Pacific Ocean and the consequent tsunami, a nuclear accident took place at the Fukushima power plant in Japan. Many filmmakers from all over the world decided to go to the disaster site to bear witness to the damage and danger caused by atomic energy. Among them was Sebastian Mez, who in April of the same year participated in the Visions du Réel Festival with Ein brief aus Deutschland. When his film won the Grand Prix for medium-length films, he was absent. When he returned, he was dissatisfied with the images he had made, and that led him to continue his work on the nuclear threat with another film, Metamorphosen. Today he has returned to the material filmed in Japan in order to find the right distance. He wanted to show, at the same time, not only the consequences of the accident but also the sensation of turmoil at work in a foreign country undergoing an emergency situation. He succeeds. The use of fade-out and the prevailing sound that announces chaos give rise to an interpretation of the apocalypse as a fusion of all things into one indivisible, indefinite whole.
Luciano Barisone
