The Face of Japan’s #MeToo Movement Speaks

There’s a scene in it Shiori Itoburner documentary Black Box ChroniclesThe director, who is also the subject of the film, tells a group of reporters that he is trying to file a criminal complaint against his rapist. Like many survivors of sexual violence who are forced into the ritual of public retrial, she is a model of what society expects from courageous women. Her face betrays no emotion, and she is dressed in the chaste uniform of the victim: delicate earrings (Ito favors pearls), a conservatively tailored blouse (here a black button-up), and little or no make-up (slight blush and faint traces of redness) alone. a stroke of eyeliner).

Ito’s voice remains calm as he describes the police’s initial rejection of his victim’s report and a litany of excuses: They said it was difficult to investigate sex crimes; Her rapist Noriyuki Yamaguchi, the former Washington Bureau chief of the Tokyo Broadcasting System and a friend of the late Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, was too powerful a figure to be scrutinized.

After a few months, authorities dropped Ito’s case, and the young woman, a journalist in her own right, decided to go public. He held the aforementioned press conference in May 2017 and published a memoir five months later.

Ito’s actions, a rare move in Japan where less than 10 percent of rape victims report their cases, sparked a scandal. #Me too The country’s moment is forcing the country to reckon with its attitudes toward sexual violence, its perpetrators, and its survivors.

Black Box Chronicles, The film, which opened in the United States on October 25, follows Ito’s attempts to obtain legal redress. With a combination of daily iPhone videos, news reports, hotel security footage from the night Ito was raped, and various audio recordings, the film is a visceral testament to survival and recourse.

With its devastation and familiarity, Ito’s first feature film finds its place among works that recognize the power of survivors’ testimonies.

An obvious one that comes to my mind is he saidTraditional dramatization by Maria Schrader New York Times reporters Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor’s investigation of Harvey Weinstein. Using the actual recording of Ambra Battilana Gutierrez’s encounter with Weinstein, Schrader shifted the film’s perspective and shook viewers from the comforting stillness of fictionalized narratives.

Another is Chanel Miller’s 2019 memoir Know My Name, The film in which Miller, who was attacked by Stanford University athlete Brock Turner in 2015, got his identity back from Emily Doe, who had anonymized it. Like Ito, Miller’s narrative finds exciting energy in self-revelation.

A more recent work is the sobering play from director Lee Sunday Evans and actress Elizabeth Marvel. Ford/Hill Project at the New York Public Theatre. This recently concluded production adds to the hearings of both Anita Hill, who appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1991 to testify against then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, who sexually harassed her, and Christine Blasey Ford, who sexually assaulted her. In 2018, after the same committee accused then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her in high school.

The financial power given to the defendants by a society that is more likely to side with the perpetrators rather than the survivors of the attack connects these studies, which span different countries and years. Together, these women’s stories form a formidable chorus of damning revelations that speak to the challenges survivors face trying to tell the truth.

Many people in Ito’s life begged him not to go public. Here are some of the interviews with his family and one of the investigators in the annulled criminal case: Black Box ChroniclesIt reveals the depths of fear that fuel the culture of silence in Japan. These people are worried about losing their jobs, damaging their reputations, and the threat of violence that could come from Ito exposing himself to a brutal public.

Still, the journalist, impressed by the values ​​that drew him to his profession, is forced to try. Ito approaches his case with the same meticulousness as he would a news story. This method makes the document easier to follow for those unfamiliar with contemporary Japanese society, while also Black Box Chronicles ironically the driving rhythm of a procedure.

In many scenes, Ito is seen recording phone calls, taking copious notes, and sitting in rooms surrounded by highlighted transcripts and folders of evidence. As the director, he draws on conversations with his editors, lawyers, and friends to provide context for why a criminal case was abandoned, a civil case was filed, and the politics in Japanese society that complicated every step of his journey.

Anecdotes gleaned from secret meetings with an anonymous researcher underscore Yamaguchi’s power. In one particularly telling story, the investigator tells Ito that although there was an arrest warrant for the high-profile journalist, police chief Itaru Nakamura, who considered Yamaguchi a friend, decided against it.

The details of Ito’s case, especially for viewers familiar with survivors’ stories, echo stories that have become more common since the rise of the #MeToo movement. The insensitivity of the investigators, the cowardly police interrogation methods that try to belittle the memories of the survivors by insisting that the truth depends on the smallest details, and the harsh criticism of the misogynistic public are on display in this film. Black Box Chronicles.

Where Ito’s film stands out are the daily iPhone videos that allow the director to confront the subject. In these clear-eyed and heartfelt confessions, Ito the journalist disperses and Ito the person comes into better view.

They reveal the chronic isolation of survivors and feature the private demons that come to the fore when they don’t have to mask their pain with calibrated clothing and fixed intonations. They reassert the idea of ​​testimony and transform it from a public action into an immediate and healing private action.