What we know about disasters, we know from the media. The medium forms the message, so media forms the disaster, what we think it is and – maybe – what it is like to be in it. While for millenia natural disasters remained engimatic for the very practical reason that those who survive it are seldom also the ones who know how to paint, speak ot write well about it, this fundamentally changed with video technology. So it’s a relatively short span in the history of human communication when we actually see disasters take place.
The ambivalence of these media images and how they might or might not affect and move us emotionally is the subject of endless debates and scientitific studies. The French-Belgian movie “Tokyo shaking” from 2021 I think brilliantly captures the complex relationship between viewer, technical apparatus (TV) and the moving image of a live disaster, here the 2011 tsunami in Japan. By zooming into the Japanese TV footage, that had become iconic by 2021 when the film came out, the sequence invites viewers to review these moments and ask themselves what their reactions and emotions where when witnessing the devastation from the security of their homes. As a European film with a European expat as protagonist and directed to European audiences, the film cleverly discusses proximity and distance in a global media event also. Who’s disaster was it? And ultimately, who was really there and who was not?