A powerful, provocative and ultimately moving film from journalist-turned-filmmaker Shiori Ito, Black Box Diaries charts her brave and determined investigation into her own sexual assault as she attempts to prosecute her high-profile and very-well connected offender, despite a lack of formal interest from the police.
While the film dips back and forth into her own timeline, it actually opens in May 2017 with her rape allegation against Noriyuki Yamaguchi, a former Washington Bureau Chief for the Tokyo Broadcasting System and also known to be the closest journalist to then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Tearfully talking to her mobile phone, she feels she has no choice in the face of Japan’s antiquated 110 year-old sexual assault laws, where age of consent is 13 and non-consent is not enough to prove rape. Her on-screen statement reads: “Today is the day I am going public. This is the only way left to get my case re-investigated.”
Her decision to go public sees her at times at odds with Japanese society and codes of behaviour, where revealing and talking about such matters is deemed shameful. Death threats, cyberbullying, and hate mail often see Shiori thrown into a downward spiral, often having to leave her apartment and stay with loyal friends. She has support and encouragement, but when she files a civil case, the accused begins a campaign against her.
Core to the film are conversations she has recorded with police investigators. She gets initial support from one, named Investigator A, and despite being told there is no evidence – even though she tells him she woke while being raped – he says he will try to bring the case to the prosecutor. When she is subsequently summoned to police headquarters, though, she is told that the policeman who was investigating has been transferred. She later gets a call from him – he says he was suddenly thrown off the case, but that an arrest warrant had definitely been issued and that Yamaguchi was going to be arrested when he arrived at a Tokyo airport when he got a call from higher-up saying to halt the arrest.
Shiori pushes forward with her case and decides to publish a book about her experience. The film sees this young woman pushing onwards, at times gently playing with friends and torn about what to do next, and also seen revisiting the Tokyo hotel where the assault took place which she finds emotionally challenging and traumatic.
Surveillance footage of her arriving at the hotel makes for harrowing viewing as she is manhandled out of a taxi, clearly unable to walk properly. And despite lack of interest from police there are moments of support. Her case is taken up in parliament; the taxi driver recalls the moment he dropped her off and towards the climax of her court case she manages to talk with the doorman of the hotel who is clear that he recalls exactly what was happening to her and is adamant he will give formal evidence.
As a filmmaker she is willing to expose herself in terms of anger and emotional angst. The film is astutely structured and deeply powerful as this young woman refuses to give up despite police assistance and support.
In her director’s statement Shiori Ito writes: “Now, four years after winning the civil case, I can with more objectivity watch the scenes of my breaking down, passing moments of joy and normalcy, and absurd comedy in my novice investigator techniques – and to conceive how they can come together to form our film.” As is usual in such instances, appeals follow appeals and Yamaguchi continues to protest his innocence.
But she adds (and explains the film’s title) : “A black box is defined as a system whose internal workings are hidden or not readily understood. Japan is a land of black boxes, and I learned what happens in this society when you start opening them. Our film is not about seeking criminal justice against my perpetrator or about politics of the left and right. Rather, it is the story of one woman’s experience – my black box, laid open for all to see.”
Japan-US-UK, 2024, 102mins
Dir: Shiori Ito
Production: Hanashi Films, Cineric Creative, Star Sands, Spark Features
International sales: Dogwoof Sales
Producers: Shiori Ito, Eric Nyari, Hanna Aqvilin
Cinematography: Hanna Aqvillin, Yuta Okamura, Shiori Ito, Keke Shiratama, Yuichiro Otsuka
Editor: Ema Ryan Yamazaki
Music: Mark Degli Antoni
