主戦場 (Shusenjo: Comfort Women and Japan's War on History)
Early in Shusenjo, the filmmakers raise the idea of “second rape” within the context of sexual trauma. The act of dismissing the personal testimony of survivors of sexual violence, it’s said, enacts a violence of words - the so-called second rape. For the “comfort women” (sex slaves) systematically brutalized by the Japanese military between 1932-1945, the continued denialism on the part of Japanese right-wing nationalists has amounted to a life burdened by the ongoing trauma of second rape. And yet, though their numbers now dwindle at around 30 living survivors, these embattled women resist the machine of Japanese propaganda to this day.
Shusenjo takes great interest in unpacking the veracity and larger historical narrative of these women’s testimonies, but director Miki Dezaki also uses the comfort women issue as a lens to discuss so much more. The documentary delves into the psychology of trauma, the collective memory of war, geopolitics and the specter of Japanese fascism all as lenses through which we can understand these women’s basic demands for justice and historical liberation. The result sounds like it could be disjointed, but Dezaki does an impressive job of structuring the documentary in coherent fashion while fleshing out the individual elements at play with appropriate nuance.
Dezaki is transparent from the top: He’s a Japanese-American man who’s previously explored racism in Japan, and this documentary was a way for him to investigate and understand the issue of comfort women. His distance allows him access to multiple perspectives on the issue - Korean and Japanese, liberal and conservative - and because of this he approaches the issue in a fashion that’s surprisingly balanced but also doesn’t undermine the experiences of the survivors. Dezaki isn’t completely impartial, but his sharp critical lens allows him to sift through propaganda and sheer anti-Korean racism with the aid of historical evidence. It’s Dezaki’s willingness to engage with people of all perspectives on the issue that makes Shusenjo so absorbing.
There are some decisions that prevent Shusenjo from realizing its full potential, and I’d be curious to know Dezaki’s thought processes here. For a film about the survivors of Japan’s comfort women system, there’s a stark lack of actual survivors who provide testimony in the film. We hear from two such survivors, and both are secondhand. On more minor notes: 1) The film ends with some recommendations from Dezaki himself to advocates of survivors and to Japanese nationals that feels a bit tone-deaf and out-of-place. It might’ve been more impactful had he let the film speak for itself. 2) Dezaki isn’t the most engaging narrator (sorry, Miki!), although with his personal stake in the comfort women issue his presence lends a specific credibility to the documentary.
Shusenjo is a remarkable documentary that I’d urge anyone to see, if only to continue to spread the testimony of the resilient women who still struggle for justice. Though I feel cynical (but not doubtful) the documentary would change the mind of those already entrenched on either side of the issue, I would hope more people can see the humanity of the comfort women and believe in their testimony.
2020/09/27
