It’s been about two years since women in the Japanese film industry began speaking out publicly against the sexual abuse they have suffered at the hands of powerful men as they struggled up the professional ladder.
The results, however, have been mixed. Victims and their supporters have organized to press for reform, while alleged abusers continue to find defenders, as evidenced by the recent Blu-ray releases in the U.S. and U.K. of an action film starring Tak Sakaguchi, an actor accused of allegedly being involved in multiple incidents of sexual assault.
Both the positive and negative strands of Japan’s belated #MeToo movement are given voice in “Blue Imagine,” the debut feature of Urara Matsubayashi, 31. An actor, producer and director, Matsubayashi’s own experience with sexual assault informed her concept of the film, which premiered at this year’s International Film Festival Rotterdam.
“They welcomed me more warmly than I thought they would,” says Matsubayashi in a recent interview. “One woman said, ‘(Your film) saved my life and gave me hope.’”
Scripted by Minami Goto, the story centers on Blue Imagine, a coffee shop and communal living space (known as a “share house” in Japan) for sexually abused women where they can live in safety. One, Noel (Mayu Yamaguchi), arrives there after being assaulted by a well-known director while participating in his actors’ workshop.
At Blue Imagine, she gets to know other women with similar experiences and becomes an assistant to a quietly understanding counselor played by Matsubayashi. With the support and encouragement of other residents, Noel finds the courage to confront the director at a press conference where he is announcing his new film.
“I wanted to make a drama in which women who have been victims of sexual violence and harassment gather at a share house and come together in solidarity,” Matsubayashi says. “I didn't want to show only one victim's point of view. Also, I wanted to portray people who were not involved in the movie industry, so I included Filipino women and others in an ensemble drama.”
The film, she adds, is not a “Hollywood movie about good and evil.” Instead of delivering a deserved public thrashing to the director at the press conference (“I thought that wouldn’t solve anything,” Matsubayashi comments), Noel and her allies verbally tear away his false front and expose his lies. “It’s more about them than him,” she says. “The film is about their fight and the beauty of their solidarity, the beauty of their metamorphosis.”
Noel goes from being unable to tell anyone — even her brother, a lawyer — about what happened to her for months after the assault to opening up and finally speaking out. “Of course, the assailant is 100% at fault, but she feels guilty, or rather, blames herself,” says Matsubayashi. By the film’s end, however, she finds self-forgiveness.
“If you want to go beyond the hurt you feel (from sexual abuse), you have to confront yourself and face the past,” Matsubayashi says. “If you don’t go beyond it, you won't be able to recover in the true sense of the word. ... You can’t change the past, but you can change the meaning of the past.”
In recent years, revelations of sexual abuse in the entertainment business have begun to appear in the mass media, and the public has become more supportive of victims. With this change, Matsubayashi notes “it’s become easier for victims to make their voices publicly heard.”
“Even nationally known figures like (comedian) Hitoshi Matsumoto and (footballer) Junya Ito are being called out for their behavior,” she adds. [Both men have denied the assault allegations against them and have filed lawsuits in response.] “Until about two years ago, what they were doing was considered acceptable. We thought the stench (of sexual abuse) was normal. It’s taken us a long time to notice the damage it caused.”
She describes her own struggle to speak out after being abused. “I was told that there is no evidence,” she says. “And being in the entertainment industry, I was worried that I might lose my job.”
Similarly in the film, Noel is told by her brother that without physical proof of abuse, her chance of winning a court case against the director is slim. So she goes to the media — at first a scruffy male newspaper reporter who tells her he needs more than “he said, she said” for an article. Then she talks to a sympathetic female journalist. When the story gets spiked, the journalist ends up posting it on her food blog, where it gets a surprisingly positive reaction. “There are times when the media is on our side,” Matsubayashi comments.
The film, however, does not lead to an easy conclusion where justice triumphs. The director’s new film is released, and he and his slimy producer, who assures him that the scandal “will blow over in a couple of months,” live to offend another day. Given Sakaguchi’s current career revival courtesy of overseas video labels, this denouement seems less cynicism than simple realism.
“There are many other people who are still unable to speak out, and there are many people who can hide (their crimes) and keep working,” Matsubayashi says. Though she knows one film won’t change that, she made it to inspire thought, hope and action.
“Noel becomes depressed because of what has happened to her, but she fights together with others,” she says. “And something wonderful comes out of that.”
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