This is the exceptional story of Japanese journalist Shiori Itō, who waived a authorized proper to anonymity to pursue her rape case in opposition to distinguished TV information govt Noriyuki Yamaguchi. The movie offers us fly-on-the-wall video footage of her embattled life as she ready her authorized case and later as she wrote her memoir of the occasions, Black Field, named after the closed information on her case: the black packing containers.
As a younger journalism intern in 2015, she had turned up for what she thought can be a career-help chat with Yamaguchi. She was confused and uncomfortable to seek out it was at a bar the place turning down his hospitality can be rude; she grew to become drunk and says she regained consciousness in a lodge room to seek out Yamaguchi raping her. Later, in a police station, officers made her re-enact the occasion with a male dummy. Itō grew to become the figurehead of the Japanese #MeToo motion as lots of of 1000’s of ladies in conservative, male-dominated Japan examined their very own supposed reminiscences of abuse. And as a journalist, Itō discovered herself on the path of a Watergate-type story: her assailant was pleasant with the Japanese prime minister and with police authorities who cancelled his arrest warrant. And on a regular basis, she acquired a blizzard of on-line abuse. Yamaguchi maintains intercourse was consensual.
Maybe with out her earlier academic expertise within the US, Itō wouldn’t have been inclined to pursue her case. The movie makes it clear that Itō had allies: an investigating officer within the Tokyo police gave her secret info on situation of anonymity and, extra sensationally nonetheless, a lodge worker went on the report to testify he noticed Yamaguchi carry a clearly incapable Itō into the constructing.
It’s from the lodge that Itō acquired her most chilling proof – the CCTV footage of Yamaguchi bundling her out of the taxi outdoors the constructing – however my solely gentle criticism of the movie is that it may have given us an actual account of how they acquired this devastating piece of video. Itō is an incredible character: an clever, brave journalist who could have modified the course of Japanese historical past.
Supply hyperlink
