Iri Maruki

Japanese husband and wife muralists Iri and Toshi Maruki are known for their depictions of the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Their collaborative relationship is unique: one paints a painfully detailed vision of the victims of the atomic blast; the other conceals the carefully delineated brush strokes with a grey-black ink “wash.” The first artist restates the specifics of the image; the second re-conceals. Through the repetition of this process, the work emerges.

After a handful of groundbreaking films detailing the tragedy and suffering of the mercury-poisoned Japanese town of Minamata, documentary master Noriaki Tsuchimoto revisits the subject of Minamata through the eyes of the celebrated husband-and-wife painting duo Iri and Toshi Maruki. Tsuchimoto follows the Marukis from their quaint homestead studio, where they paint slews of ghastly, psychotropic mural panels depicting the effects of Minamata disease, to the streets of Minamata, where they meet and paint portraits of several victims of mercury poisoning.

Filmed soon after the end of the Allied occupation, this documentary is an extremely valuable record of the production and nationwide tour of “The Hiroshima Panels” at the time.