Toyo's Camera (2009)
Even though bringing in cameras to the internment camps was prohibited, one man managed to smuggle in his own camera lens and build a camera to document life behind barbed wires, with the help of other craftsmen in the camp. That man was Toyo Miyatake, a successful issei (first generation immigrant) photographer and owner of a photo-shop in the Los Angeles Little Tokyo district, and of one of the many Americans who was interned with his family against his will. With his makeshift camera, Miyatake captured the dire conditions of life in the camps during World War II as well as the resilient spirit of his companions, many of whom were American citizens who went on to fight for their country overseas. Miyatake said, "It is my duty to record the facts, as a photographer, so that this kind of thing should never happen again."
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The Worst Film Ever
Good concept, poorly executed.
The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.
The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
I am surprised that I am the first one who is writing a review for this film after entire three years! Overall, this film is a little slow to watch. It shows a lot of photos. I think that it would be nice if they ask those people to tell us what those adults, children do in the camps everyday. And they could have also told us stories of other Japanese who lived in other camps, what their lives were like, etc. They could have gone beyond those photos, and gone into details, such as if the children can get books to learn, did they have their own schools, were those people allowed to go to hospitals if they were very sick, etc? In its extra, it has a cartoon about the history. It is a little offensive when they used slanted eyes to portrait Chinese. It listed four wrong things that the USA government did, it included the Japanese camps, but they didn't think that that fact that Chinese were also racially discriminated, banned from immigrating to the USA was one of the wrong things.