[KineJapan] Black Box Diaries revised edition

[Aaron Gerow]

Ito Shiori's revised version of Black Box Diaries opened in Japan on Friday and today she held a screening and press conference at the FCCJ with her fellow producers. It was a lively press conference. She distributed a lengthy response to criticism, including the charges made by one of her former lawyers, which is also available on her website. She especially asserted that some of the charges made by the lawyer were false and she can show evidence that they were false. 

Reporters did ask about her use of sources, and it was perhaps her response to questions about protecting the identity of Investigator A that was the most problematic. She rightly argued that the film does a lot to hide his identity from the general public, but one reporter said that there is enough information in the film that others in the prosecutor's office can identify him. She said she couldn't understand the question, which was odd. (That said, I would ask my journalist friends how much you can protect an inside source from others in the inside.) The most contentious moment was when she accused a reporter from the Tokyo Shinbun of writing a false story, after which that reporter stood up and verbally attacked her. I would have to read Ito's multi-page response to say for sure, but it seems she is trying to respond to criticism, but that issues remain cloudy. 

As for the film, I must confess I have not seen the original version. What she passed out explains the differences, the biggest probably being the scenes with the taxi driver. I found it a powerful film with an important message, but it also has difficulty—and not necessarily to its own fault—of traversing very different genres: investigative journalism, documentary, and personal documentary (and more?). Each can have its own rules. For instance, the MC today, Jake Adelstein, asserted that investigative journalists do not need permission from the hotel to use that video. But perhaps other genres do. It was particularly the personal documentary side that, while crucial to the film (Ito talked a bit about how it was originally not in the film), is in greatest tension with the other elements. 

As I was walking from the FCCJ to Akasaka to catch rakugo, I ended up walking through the Imperial Palace park and by the Diet Building. That underlined for me that the film is very much a landscape film, often playing its audio recordings against the manifestations of power in landscape.

Here is Ito’s site: https://www.shioriito.com/
Her statement is in the News section.


Aaron Gerow
Alfred W. Griswold Professor of East Asian Languages and Literatures and Film and Media Studies
Yale University
On leave AY 2025-2026
320 York Street, Room 108
PO Box 208201
New Haven, CT 06520-8201
USA
Phone: 1-203-432-7082
Fax: 1-203-432-6729
e-mail: aaron.gerow at yale.edu
website: www.aarongerow.com

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