Black Box Diaries

This documentary makes me feel what actually happened in a drama can happen in real life. The unfortunate encounter of Ito who being raped by a Japanese official Yamaguchi is the story about this movie. It documented the incidence happened in 2015 to 2023 where the case be "settled". Yamaguchi is a close friend of ex-prime minister Abe. It's very alike many movie storyline that how a native citizen flight again powerful politician from nothing to have something. The end of the story didn't happen to be what happen to those movies but it actually is what the reality ending is (you will find out what I meant after watching). Even the ending wasn't as ideal as I expect, Ito did win in all aspects and made the society a step forward against sexual violence. It's really moving for the collaboration of people in this case, the standout of victims Ito's seeking for justice publicly and the doorman part, highly recommended to watch a story that is something real happening in life.

This film should be mindful that attorneys, acting on the wishes of copyright holders whose materials have been used without permission, have issued demands for immediate editing or deletion. These demands come from the very attorneys who represented the director in the civil lawsuit that features prominently in the film itself. If the attorneys' demands are indeed valid, it may discourage individuals or organizations from supporting evidence collection, even when survivors of sexual abuse bravely come forward. Such an outcome would deliver a severe and lasting blow to efforts to hold perpetrators accountable and secure justice for victims. Should this happen, it would call into question the very purpose for which the film was produced and publicly released.

A very sobering example of how behind Japanese law and society as whole is when it comes to sexual assault and harassment.

It makes absolutely no sense for there to be video evidence with multiple camera angles of someone being pulled half-conscious into a hotel with multiple witnesses saying she was trying to leave where it is later reported as a sexual assault and claim there is not enough evidence to even investigate it. It was an incredibly intelligent move to document the whole process of pursing justice as many who are not aware of how negatively victims are looked at in Japan would not believe it if you told them.

Watched this at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.

Shiori Ito creates a difficult yet compelling and powerful documentary about her experiences with sexual assault and exposes the corruption of Japan's legal system and the toughness of what she has went throughout. Ito's approach on the subject was well handled with good discussions, insightful information and great presentation throughout as many of the themes, twists, and subjects explored were quite difficult to watch, yet important to understand.

Ito is really brave on creating this documentary to document her story and there are some conversations that were emotionally investing and quite frustrating to watch. Perfectly capturing the struggles of victims who encounter sexual assault and the corruptions of the legal system without feeling inappropriate and exploitive. It isn't easy to create such a story and I do applaud Ito for making this.

With the #MeToo movement emerged years back, many countless documentaries about sexual assault have been created that were compelling and Black Box Diaries does an amazing job on exploring the issue and exposing the corruptions behind the scene.

This is quite an harrowing watch at times whilst we follow Japanese journalist Shiori Itô as she seeks justice for an alleged rape a few years earlier. To be fair, up front, this is not a balanced documentary but a potent video-diary style presentation crafted by the woman herself to not only document the course of her own battle, but also to illustrate just how out-dated the legal processes were in a nation that's legal system still treated women as a possession of a man in many ways. We identify the accused - from whom we do not hear directly or via his representatives, and from there on we focus on her attempts to see him face her accusations. The film now concentrates on the courageous efforts of a woman to see that process of justice done. The laws that inherently obstruct her need to be identified, addressed and replaced so as not to protect, or be seen to protect, any influential people from heinous crimes of any sort. It also goes on to demonstrate quite effectively just how difficult - if you are to adopt the "innocent til proven guilty" approach that underpins so much of the legal system - it is to adequately codify crimes of an intimate nature ensuring that they are to be objectively dealt with. Especially problematic as there are so often no witnesser and/or extensive time lapses between the incident and any attempt at redress. It's also quite potent at illuminating what I feel are the frequently absurd differentiations between the evidence required for a criminal or a civil case. The latter always feels to me that it's more about balance of probability, sometimes even money rather than seeing the rule of law robustly and impartially upheld in the first place. This doesn't provide answers to these complex issues, indeed I suspect there are no straightforward answers - but that anyone has to go through this kind of emotional maelstrom just to get a day in court is something that the public ought to feel disgusted by.