Tadashi Nakamura spent 2020 to 2024 shooting his documentary, Third Act, so his father, legendary filmmaker Robert A. Nakamura, wouldn’t be forgotten. But the film he created, which screened at the Sundance Film Festival, goes beyond his father’s life to explore how prejudice, sickness, activism, success and love helped shape four generations of a Japanese-American family.
It was meant to be, as there was little chance of Robert being forgotten.
Robert became known as the “godfather of Asian American media,” making Hito Hata: Raise the Banner and other films about the Japanese American experience. His 1971 film Manzanar was inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. He co-founded Visual Communications, an Asian-Pacific American media arts organization. He was a longtime professor at UCLA, where he founded the Center for EthnoCommunicaions in the Asian American Studies Center. Additionally, Robert and his wife, Karen, founded the Watase Media Arts Center. Today, Tadashi is the center’s director.
While Robert became a filmmaker/activist who inspired others to take pride in their heritage, Third Act explores a time when he felt ashamed. During World War II, the United States incarcerated Robert and his family at the Manzanar War Relocation Center, one of 10 camps established for West Coast residents of Japanese ancestry. Robert’s father, who worked from a gardener to a businessman, lost everything and had to start over after the experience. Robert’s self-image in the face of discrimination is somewhat reflected in Tadashi, who tried to shed any Asian stereotypes by presenting himself as the all-American jock during his formative years. We see how depression followed Robert throughout life and became more apparent after he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease during filming.
Tadashi is also a main character. He explains the pressure he felt being the legend’s son, and Tadashi and Robert seem nearly joined at the hip throughout the film.
As Roberts’s disease progresses, more family members come to the forefront, including Tadashi’s son Prince, bringing Tadashi to reflect on the future as well as the past.
Third Act is told with family photos, footage from Robert’s films and activism, historical images from Manzanar and the war, interviews and even some seemingly mundane scenes that introduce the audience to the family. Through the film’s first, second and third acts, it keeps returning to Manzanar, a once traumatic site that is now connecting generations. Third Act will make you laugh and cry with its stars. It’s a touching and thought-provoking documentary that belongs at the festival.
During a Q&A, Tadashi explained that filming helped him escape reality. He thought he could keep his working relationship with his father alive as long as they worked on the film.
Thankfully, Robert, 88, was also at the festival to see the final cut.
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