Cats of Mirikitani
Yesterday I saw The Cats of Mirikitani, a wonderful documentary about the life of Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani. The film begins in 2001, when the filmmaker takes a camera to Jimmy, an 82 year old Japanese American artist living on the streets in New York. Mirikitani was held in a Japanese internment camp during WWII, and much of his art depicts his years there, as well as the atomic bomb that killed his family in Hiroshima where Mirikitani spent his youth. While much of the film centers around these and other painful events, Mirikitani's independent spirit and dedication to his art is the prevailing theme. What could have been a depressing film about an old homeless man in New York turns out to have been an experience that left me smiling leaving the theater.
The Cats of Mirikitani is showing now at the Roxie in San Francisco. Jimmy's work is on display now in Seattle at the Wing Luke Asian Museum
