Atomic

Japan’s evolution in the past century seems inextricably linked to atomic power. As the first anniversary of the Tohoku disaster approaches — with families still homeless, livestock running free in the no-entry evacuation zones, and wrecked power plants still cracking at the seams — one cannot help but see the groaning tectonic shifts in a country forced into change. Sion Sono’s “Himizu” IMO is the first of what will probably be a stream of films capturing the kind of restless unease echoed not so long ago by earlier generations shaken from the atomic bombings of WWII.