Original subtitles

It's going to come up to here!

The sea's rising.

Get back up here! Come on!

I'm scared even here.

Korya, hurry up!

Over here!

You almost can't see the islands anymore.

It's incredible!

There's a huge wave!

It's coming, we've got to get out of here.

Leave everything!

That's my house!

We don't have any more time!

Run! Run!

The first dead spirit that made itself known to her

was that of a young father.

He was yelling his daughter's name:

WAKANA, WAKANA, WAKANA.

I MUST FIND WAKANA!

I asked him if he was looking for someone.

YES, MY DAUGHTER!

Where is she?

AT SCHOOL.

MY DAUGHTER'S AT SCHOOL, I HAVE TO SAVE HER.

This is terrible! I tell him.

I DON'T CARE.

TELL ME WHERE MY DAUGHTER IS.

I asked him where he was.

I DON'T KNOW.

I CAN'T SEE ANYTHING, THERE'S NO LIGHT.

MAYBE I'M AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA.

You must find the light and walk towards it.

I repeated this sentence several times.

WHERE ARE YOU TAKING ME TO?

You're dead.

I'M DEAD?

There was an earthquake following a devastating tsunami

which killed an enormous amount of people.

HOW MANY?

About 20,000.

He started crying.

SO MANY DEAD?

Yes

and you're one of them.

RISING FROM THE TSUNAMI.

Please put everything back after playing.

We need 22 or 23.

I've got 10.

I'm sorry, it's only one bracelet per person.

You mustn't make one for someone else.

Watching you,

I realize that time's gone by.

It's been five years since the catastrophe

and you've all aged.

But that's normal. I was 55 at the time.

I turned sixty this year.

I'm starting to get tired, too.

But, as long as you're still here,

I'll keep going.

Some already know which town they'll live in,

but others still don't know.

Here, we've got one foot in the provisional zones

and another in the towns being rebuilt.

You're constructing a new life

and our role will soon be over.

It was long,

and many of you have gotten close

but we're happy that life is going back to usual.

We still have ten minutes.

Shall we spend this time in silence?

It's pointless chatting.

So please,

make the most of this time for reflection.

In memory of the victims of the earthquake in North-East Japan,

we're going to sound a siren

for one minute.

Before, in our city, there were 38 hairdressers.

Eight were destroyed.

Since we were close to the coast, we had to get out quickly

but the others thought that the tsunami wouldn't reach them.

I understand.

And are you able to get through it, bit by bit?

I have to keep going.

Because... that's life.

You know, those of us who weren't affected

don't really know how to approach it with you.

We're afraid of stirring up unpleasant memories

while you're trying to forget them.

I think it's the survivors' role.

To talk about it?

Now that time has passed,

some people have started saying

that they've seen wandering souls

of people whose bodies hadn't been found.

Ghosts...

I mean, spirits.

- Have you already seen some? - Me, never.

But when I go to look for my mother, once a week,

if it's raining, the sensor on my car

tells me: "Watch out on your right" or "Watch out on your left",

even though nothing's there.

It's interesting.

I tell myself that it's because of the rain,

but it never says: "Watch out in front."

So I roll down the window,

thinking that it could be my grandmother's spirit.

Then my mother asks: "Have you arrived at the afterlife?"

And that's when the alarm stops.

Maybe it's not connected,

but I think that she still hasn't gone up to heaven.

They're the "upset" dead.

I miss her sometimes, it's true,

and I think of her a lot.

- I'm going to dry them this way. - OK.

I always leave them to dry naturally, because with this wind...

If Grandma was still here,

I'd ask her to keep an eye on the girls.

You must have really been sad.

Near the Miracle Pine Tree at Matsubara, along highway 45,

there are supposedly lots of people...

wandering in groups.

Spirits?

Yes, around the diversion.

Those that can see them stop to look.

And this creates huge traffic jams,

and people wonder if there's been an accident...

So then the police come, and so on.

A ghost parade.

The Miracle Pine Tree.

Hello!

Rice balls.

You can put everything together.

Have you all brought some?

We'll put everything here.

I can never remember the women's names.

Excuse me.

I have selective memory.

The TV sensationalises so much!

We don't have enough space in the town for our dead,

so people are scattering the ashes into the sea.

Some even send them into space.

The ashes spin in orbit for eight months,

then they burn up in the atmosphere.

The adverts tell you:

"Grandpa will become a shooting star."

What a funny idea, right?

Shooting star Grandpa...

I'm a little uncomfortable with people throwing ashes into the sea.

Why do that?

While others are still hopeful about finding their loved ones' remains in there.

It's complicated, everyone has their reasons.

Let's try to live as long as possible!

A long life for all.

When the Japanese wonder where their souls go,

they imagine that they go to the mountain.

There's a temple at the top of Mount Osore.

Traditionally, people make piles of stones

which represent the things they weren't able to accomplish down here.

This is the Sanzu River. It looks small from here,

but it's a big river that separates the living and the dead.

This river symbolises this separation.

My father told me in a dream that if there's an earthquake,

you should always get out since an enormous tsunami will follow.

It was 3 pm when the tremor struck,

just when I was going out to do the shopping.

It didn't take much.

The tremors were so strong...

If I'd gone out, I would have been swept away by the wave.

When I got home, I saw that my daughter wasn't there.

She didn't come home the next day, either.

That's when both of us started looking.

We thought that our daughters were going to come back.

We watched where the army helicopters went.

We never stopped looking.

We walked a lot.

We looked in all the refuges.

We went everywhere by foot.

We thought we'd find them.

We looked at the lists of the names of survivors.

But wherever we went, they weren't there.

In the end,

we went to the centre for emergency operations.

And that's when they told us that instead of going round the refuges,

we'd better go see the morgues.

Every day for two months.

We found my daughter in April.

Now only my uncle is still missing.

One person.

If we find him, I'll have found the fifteen members of my family.

But, one is still missing.

For a while, I couldn't look at the sea anymore.

At first, I didn't want to walk along the coast.

There wasn't any light anymore, either. It was all dark.

At Takata, when I walked at night, I had chills running down my spine.

You know, at Ketsuzen Bridge,

the dead have been seen

crossing the bridge.

Do you remember the Sakuraya restaurant?

Apparently, the ghosts line up in front.

To eat noodle soup.

Yes, that's where you can see them.

Some say that they see people running on the sea,

others say that there are ghost ships.

I've never seen anything.

Me neither, and yet I'm usually aware of ghosts.

They say that there are lots making themselves known.

I found my daughter on the 24th of May.

At her funeral, one of her friends came

and told me that my daughter had come to her in the night.

She was dressed in white and was smiling.

I wondered why she had seen her

and not me.

Those who were taken by the wave appear when I sleep.

I feel something around my heart

or someone pulling me by the legs.

It's happened two or three times.

I wouldn't be able to get back to sleep, so I'd walk around at night.

I often saw you walking.

Even in broad daylight.

If I talked about it, no one would understand.

It would take too long to explain.

Before the tsunami, I'd been to Mount Osore three times.

On top of the mountain, if you have mud on your shoes,

you're supposed to wash them

so that you don't bring any spirits back home with you.

Really?

Apparently, yes.

- I've still never been. - Me neither.

No mud on your shoes, then?

Yes, you know, the soil sticks to the soles...

There's a very beautiful spot at Osore where the ground is white.

When a human being loses control of their emotions,

and they can't contain them anymore,

at this precise moment, all the emotions break out.

Two years after the tsunami,

I volunteered at Ishinomaki.

When I came back, tired, I lay down on the sofa

when my phone rang.

When I picked up the phone, I heard a woman's voice, full of suffering.

She was telling me that she wanted to take her own life.

She wanted to die.

So I asked her why she was suffering so much.

She told me that several dead people had entered into her

and that she couldn't make them leave.

She couldn't harbour them any more.

The first people that had possessed Kaori

all had something to do with water.

Such as sailors who had drowned during the war

or swimmers who had died in swimming pools.

Spirits like that.

More and more of the people killed by the tsunami made themselves known.

The first was a young father.

A young man who'd died in the tsunami.

His spirit wouldn't stop talking to her.

Kaori explained to me...

that he was looking for his daughter.

WAKANA, WAKANA.

I HAVE TO SAVE WAKANA!

I MUST SAVE HER.

Then, one day, Kaori calls me.

A child's spirit kept spinning around her.

I asked her to describe the spirit.

She told me that it was a five or six-year-old boy.

She was speaking to me normally.

Then all of a sudden, she spoke with a child's voice:

MOM, MOM, I'M SORRY.

I'M SORRY, MOM.

DON'T BE MAD.

I LET GO OF YOCHAN'S HAND.

When the great black wave came, he'd started running with the others,

but he let go of his beloved little brother's hand.

YOU'RE NOT GOING TO BE MAD, MOM?

Then Kaori began to panic.

That's when I realized

that I wouldn't manage by myself.

I asked my wife to hold her hand

and play the role of the mother.

"I'm here, it's your mother.

"Everything's alright, everything's alright."

I began the ritual, and then the child said:

MOM, I CAN GET THERE ON MY OWN.

I CAN CROSS OVER THE CIRCLE OF LIGHT.

YOU CAN LET GO OF MY HAND NOW.

And my wife let go of her hand.

Kaori had held her hand so tightly

that when I looked at my wife's hand,

it had gone blue.

This is the list of the names of the spirits

which had spoken through her.

There were 25 overall.

Remains of the Crisis Management Centre Memorial entrance.

The firefighters received the order to loosen their belt.

They took them all up at the same time.

They attached their belt and their life-jacket

to the ramp so that they wouldn't be swept away.

But the tsunami got stronger and stronger and beat them against the ramp.

That's why the ramps are twisted, they say.

About 50 people managed to reach the roof.

They thought that the tsunami couldn't reach them up there.

But the water rose up to here,

30 cm below these two poles.

A photographer from the town took these from the elementary school.

Here's the photo.

Almost all the people that you see here are dead.

They say that in regions like this one,

where we live close to the sea,

we should separate the living quarters from where we go to work.

In order to save time, man has moved closer to his work

by living on the coast.

In prehistoric times, man already knew

that it was best to live up on hills.

Even the old cemeteries were far away

and were used as refuges during natural disasters.

I think that when we see all this, we should ask ourselves:

Why spend all this money to keep making the same mistakes?

We should know the terrain we're living on.

It's important to know geography.

- Is that the elementary school? - No, it's the middle school.

So that's the elementary school, there.

That's where they first saw the tsunami coming.

They lost their voices because they were shouting so much.

Should we go here?

Here?

Let's go over there.

The first structure is a dyke

which stops the sea.

The second construction stops the tsunami from going any further.

The first construction already existed before the earthquake.

It was TP + 3 m high.

After the tsunami, we decided to raise it to TP + 11.5 m

and add another meter so that it reached 12.5 m.

The tsunami's height varies depending on the region.

For example, here, the tsunami came up to TP + 13.7 m.

This means that if there's a tsunami of similar size,

the wave would reach over the structure,

but some of the water would be held back.

Uh...

That's just how it is.

Here's the structure in reverse T,

"perpendicular" reverse T.

Underneath this reverse T,

we dug to a depth

of 6.5 to 20 m in order to set the foundation piles.

It's thanks to this solid base that the structure is able to hold.

The wall that you see in front of you

was built

with 15,000 metres cubed of concrete.

15,000 metres cubed in total.

Around 4,000 workers worked on this construction.

4,000.

The tsunami came up to here.

The dyke was 10 m high

at the time.

Thanks to this embankment, we didn't have a single victim.

That's when I realized the fundamental importance of these dykes.

I think that without it, there would have been lives lost.

They block the view, they're not nice to look at,

but they save lives.

This is a typhoon warning.

A very strong typhoon

is expected tonight.

Please do not leave your houses if at all possible.

The works will be delayed by one year.

It's inconvenient, but it strengthens security.

Businesses will return to the region

and young people will find work.

It's a very important project for Tohoku, our region.

These breakwaters stretch out across 400 km of coast affected by the tsunami.

Three days later,

we took refuge in the gymnasium.

And that's where they told me

that there wasn't a single survivor.

But I couldn't believe it

so long as I hadn't seen it with my own eyes.

With other refugee parents,

we packed ourselves into cars

but after a while there was no more road.

We went as far as we could.

Then we went along the sea coast on foot.

Once we arrived at the school,

there were lots of blue tarpaulins stretched across the courtyard.

Thinking that maybe our children were under there,

we lifted up the tarpaulins.

There were many bodies.

I looked with all my might to find my child,

but he wasn't there.

The local firefighters

were unearthing corpses with shovels

all around the school.

And I...

didn't have anything to dig with.

I took some debris

to dig with and look for my son.

I took a piece of concrete from the rubble

and I searched with all my strength.

I dug.

I dug up the earth all around the school.

For one year, my husband stopped working

in order to give all his time to look for him.

Despite this, we've never found him.

Sometimes I wake up at night to cry, alone,

and the memories come back.

It's in these moments

that I hear

noises coming from the ceiling

or sounds as if someone's banging on the wall.

It's happened several times.

It began three years after the tsunami.

The box of tissues had been moved,

as if he was playing a trick on us.

We set up a shrine for Koto in our prefab,

with a drum and a little bell.

The bell rings, even when there's no wind.

My youngest son hears it too.

Only Koto can be doing that.

Animals have also possessed her body.

"There's a dog.

"It's making a lot of noise.

"It won't stop barking."

I told her to let it in,

but she didn't want to become a dog.

She asked me to put some water and rice

in a bowl as an offering.

After a few seconds, she shouted: "He's here!

"I'm going to let him in."

She began struggling violently.

There were three of us men, but she pushed us off.

She was incredibly strong.

It was a white dog that came from Namie,

a town close to the Fukushima plant.

The dog stayed tied up

while everyone else escaped.

He held out a few days but ended up dying of starvation.

Two people in white suits approached him

and shook him by the collar to make sure he was really dead.

When we managed to calm her down,

I began the ritual by pouring sacred water onto her.

Then I burned some incense and all of a sudden, the dog left.

You should have come in winter.

But Mount Osore is closed then.

This season isn't so bad, actually. Or, why not summer?

Summer's the reopening season, there's a lot of people then.

I can understand why so many people come.

Either way, the Osore temple is still visited as much as before.

I've only ever been once, a long time ago.

Maybe I'll go there again when I die.

Maybe no one really goes there.

I don't know, but there's this story people tell...

The path in the forest leading to Mount Osore passes by a river.

Someone working at the temple was coming down the mountain.

At the river, he comes across a young man walking up

who stops him and asks him

if he could go look for something that he'd forgotten back home

and bring it to him the next day on Mount Osore.

Upon arriving at the given address, the man realized

that the young man had been dead for several days.

It's one of the stories of this area.

It's a bit overblown. It's really just folklore.

I remember reading somewhere that it's really happened to people.

There are a lot of stories like this one.

In the end, you believe it or you don't, but most people do, don't they?

I do.

No one knows what happens in the afterlife.

No...

My husband died 10 years ago.

At the time of the tsunami, I was living alone.

I was in the kitchen when I heard a voice calling me.

Straight away I recognized the voice of my late husband.

So I went looking for this insistent voice.

I saw someone that looked like him

at the top of the hill.

I approached him, going further into the forest,

when the ground started shaking violently.

Tree branches hit against each other and made an incredible racket.

I was terrified and held on to a tree to wait out the tremors.

After a long while, I let go and started heading back.

And what I saw next makes me tremble even today.

The wave was sweeping everything away.

My town,

my neighborhood,

my house.

There was nothing left.

Through his voice, my dear husband saved me from the waters.