Strawberry Fields (1997 film)

Last updated
Strawberry Fields
Strawberry fields 175.jpg
DVD cover
Directed by Rea Tajiri
Written byRea Tajiri
Kerri Sakamoto
Produced byRea Tajiri
Jason Kliot
Hank Blumenthal
Starring
CinematographyZachary Winestine
Edited bySteve Hamilton
James Lyons
Music byBundy Brown
Sooyoung Park
Distributed byVanguard Cinema (DVD)
Release date
1997
Running time
90 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$360,000 [1]

Strawberry Fields is a 1997 independent feature film directed by Japanese American filmmaker Rea Tajiri and co-written by Tajiri and Japanese Canadian author Kerri Sakamoto.

Contents

Plot

The story of the film centers on Irene Kawai, a Japanese American teenager in Chicago in the 1970s who is haunted by a photo of her grandfather she never knew standing by a barracks in a World War II internment camp for Japanese Americans. Prompted by visits from the ghost of Terri, her dead baby sister, Irene journeys with her boyfriend Luke on a road trip to Arizona, where the Poston War Relocation Center once stood, and where the photo of her grandfather was taken.

Main cast

Production

Filmmaker Rea Tajiri, whose own grandparents and parents were interned, was inspired to make the project because of the lack of films that explored the effects of internment on internees' children.

“I felt at the time I began the project that there hadn’t been any films made that looked at the effect the internment had on the children of internees,” said the New York City-based filmmaker...“What was that moment like when you discovered your family was interned and how does that affect you? How does that make you look at your family after that point?” [1]

Strawberry Fields was filmed in Chicago, Illinois, and in California. The film was completed in 1997, a process that took four years. [1] It took another two years to get commercially released. [1] The film received funding from CPB, NEA and ITVS.

Release

It premiered at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival and was an Official Selection to the Venice Film Festival. It also screened at the Los Angeles Film Festival and won the Grand Prix at the Fukuoka Asian Film Festival. [1] It was released on VHS and DVD by Vanguard Cinema.

Reception

Critic Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times called the film "very impressive...a tough-minded, idiosyncratic coming-of-age story". [2] Variety was more critical, citing the film's "superficially sketched characters" and "hackneyed dialogue". [3]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manzanar</span> World War II Japanese-American internment camp in California

Manzanar is the site of one of ten American concentration camps, where more than 120,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II from March 1942 to November 1945. Although it had over 10,000 inmates at its peak, it was one of the smaller internment camps. The largest was the Tule Lake internment camp, located in northern California with a population of over 18,000 inmates. The smallest was Amanche, located southeastern Colorado, with over 7,000 inmates. It is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California's Owens Valley, between the towns of Lone Pine to the south and Independence to the north, approximately 230 miles (370 km) north of Los Angeles. Manzanar means "apple orchard" in Spanish. The Manzanar National Historic Site, which preserves and interprets the legacy of Japanese American incarceration in the United States, was identified by the United States National Park Service as the best-preserved of the ten former camp sites.

Strawberry Fields may refer to:

Kerri Sakamoto is a Canadian novelist. Her novels commonly deal with the experience of Japanese Canadians.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yuri Kochiyama</span> American civil rights activist

Yuri Kochiyama was an American civil rights activist. Influenced by her Japanese-American family's experience in an American internment camp, her association with Malcolm X, and her Maoist beliefs, she advocated for many causes, including black separatism, the anti-war movement, reparations for Japanese-American internees, and the rights of political prisoners.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Poston War Relocation Center</span> Detainee camp in Arizona, United States

The Poston Internment Camp, located in Yuma County in southwestern Arizona, was the largest of the ten American concentration camps operated by the War Relocation Authority during World War II.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rohwer War Relocation Center</span> World War II internment camp for Japanese-Americans

The Rohwer War Relocation Center was a World War II Japanese American concentration camp located in rural southeastern Arkansas, in Desha County. It was in operation from September 18, 1942, until November 30, 1945, and held as many as 8,475 Japanese Americans forcibly evacuated from California.Among the inmates, the notation "朗和" was sometimes applied. The Rohwer War Relocation Center Cemetery is located here, and was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1992.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tōyō Miyatake</span>

Tōyō Miyatake was a Japanese American photographer, best known for his photographs documenting the Japanese American people and the Japanese American internment at Manzanar during World War II.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Suzy Nakamura</span> American actress

Suzy Nakamura is an American actress and improv comedian. She is known for her many guest appearances on sitcoms such as According to Jim, Half and Half, 8 Simple Rules, Curb Your Enthusiasm and How I Met Your Mother and her recurring role in the early seasons of the drama The West Wing as assistant to the Sam Seaborn character, as well as Dr. Miura in the ABC sitcom Modern Family. She had leading roles in the television shows Dr. Ken and Avenue 5.

Dan Kwong is an American performance artist, writer, teacher and visual artist. He has been presenting his solo performances since 1989, often drawing upon his own life experiences to explore personal, historical, and social issues.

Takayo Fischer is an American stage, film and television actress, as well as voice-over actress.

Rea Tajiri is a Japanese American video artist, filmmaker, and screenwriter, known for her personal essay film History and Memory: For Akiko and Takashige (1991).

<i>American Pastime</i> (film) 2007 American film

American Pastime is a 2007 fictional film set in the Topaz War Relocation Center, a Utah prison camp which held thousands of people during the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

The Pacific Citizen (P.C.) is a national, award-winning semi-monthly newspaper based in Los Angeles, California, United States. The P.C. has been providing the leading Asian Pacific American (APA) news to the community since its inception in 1929. The newspaper is published by the Japanese American Citizens League, JACL, which is the nation’s oldest and largest APA civil rights organization.

Honouliuli National Historic Site is near Waipahu on the island of Oahu, in the U.S. state of Hawaii. This is the site of the Honouliuli Internment Camp which was Hawaiʻi's largest and longest-operating internment camp, opened in 1943 and closed in 1946. It was designated a National monument on February 24, 2015, by President Barack Obama. The John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act, signed March 12, 2019, redesignated it as Honouliui National Historic Site. The internment camp held 320 internees and also became the largest prisoner of war camp in Hawaiʻi with nearly 4,000 individuals being held. Of the seventeen sites that were associated with the history of internment in Hawaiʻi during World War II, the camp was the only one built specifically for prolonged detention. As of 2015, the new national monument is without formal services and programs.

William Minoru Hohri was an American political activist and the lead plaintiff in the National Council for Japanese American Redress lawsuit seeking monetary reparations for the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. He was sent to the Manzanar concentration camp with his family after the attack on Pearl Harbor triggered the United States' entry into the war. After leading the NCJAR's class action suit against the federal government, which was dismissed, Hohri's advocacy helped convince Congress to pass legislation that provided compensation to each surviving internee. The legislation, signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1988, included an apology to those sent to the camps.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial</span>

The Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial is an outdoor exhibit commemorating the internment of Japanese Americans from Bainbridge Island in the state of Washington. It is located on the south shore of Eagle Harbor, opposite the town of Winslow. Administratively, it is a unit of the Minidoka National Historic Site in Idaho. The mission of the memorial is Nidoto Nai Yoni, “Let It Not Happen Again”.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fumiko Hayashida</span> Japanese American activist

Fumiko Hayashida née Nishinaka was an American activist, originally from Bainbridge Island, Washington, who became one of the first Japanese Americans to be interned in March 1942. Hayashida was the subject of a Seattle Post-Intelligencer photograph which shows her, 31-years-old, holding her sleeping 10-month-old daughter, Natalie, while waiting to board a ferry from Bainbridge Island to the mainland with other Japanese American internees. The photo became an iconic image of the plight of approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans who were interned during World War II following the signing of Executive Order 9066. However, the identity of the woman in the photograph remained unknown for decades. She was known only as "Mystery Girl" or "Mystery Lady" until the 1990s, when researchers at the Smithsonian Institution uncovered her identity and tracked her down.

History and Memory: For Akiko and Takashige is a 1991 documentary film by Rea Tajiri. In her film, Tajiri recalls her family's experience of the American internment of the Japanese during World War II.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lillian Baker</span>

Lillian Baker was a conservative author and lecturer She is known for supporting Japanese-American Internment throughout her career.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Matsumoto, Jon (June 4, 1999). "'Strawberry Fields' Rooted in Painful Past". Los Angeles Times . Archived from the original on August 12, 2020. Retrieved January 8, 2022.
  2. Thomas, Kevin (3 April 1997). "What's Playing at Los Angeles Film Festival". Los Angeles Times . Archived from the original on 23 August 2014.
  3. Harvey, Dennis (March 29, 1997). "Strawberry Fields". Variety . Retrieved January 8, 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)