Apologies to the magazine and author for any inaccuracies.
Interview with ‘Shinbun Kisha’ director, Fujii Michihito
Cabinet
interference; bureaucrats’ ‘sontaku’,[1]
rape suspicion; doctoring of official documents
Portrayal of today’s
conflict between government and media
Amidst the heated
debate about freedom of the media and government pressure, one movie is having
a not insignificant impact on not only the cinema scene but also the media
industry. It’s called ‘Shinbun Kisha’. The conflict between a newspaper
reporter intent on delivering a scoop that exposes the dark side of the state
and the government that uses every possible measure to defend itself, and the appearance
of a bureaucrat who wavers over the boundary of justice between the two, is portrayed
in a breath-taking way. Herein lies a dramatic human drama. It is quiet but
forceful.
The director is the up-and-coming Fujii Michihito, well
known for a style that is rich in emotional expression and entertainment.
However, in the beginning he declined (to direct it). ‘I was interested in the
kind of politics that was reflected in my day-to- living, but I didn’t think
deeply about politics; nor was I in the habit of reading the daily newspapers. In
other words, I was politically apathetic (and this is why I declined it at
first).’
However, Kawamura Mitsunobu, the producer of movies replete with
social commentary, such as ‘Kazoku no Kuni’ and ‘Aa, Koya’, thought, ‘It’s for
that very reason that [Fujii] should shoot the film’ and he insisted that the
32 yr old Fujii, as a member of the ‘generation that doesn’t read the newspaper’
be the director. In response to Kawamura’s offer of the idea that ‘I want to
make a movie that deals with how an individual might live their lives while coping
with group peer pressure’, Fujii was forward looking: ‘It doesn’t matter what others
think if me, for once I want to do something as if my life depended on it.’
In fact, movies that Fujii has directed, such as ‘Oh, Father’
and ‘Hikari to Chi’ contain a penetrating view of the contradictions within
society, and the adversarial ghost of the criticism of these films lingers on. For
Fujii, deep down, something else co-existed alongside his entrenched apathy towards
politics and the media.
Before filming, Fujii met with people in many different
capacities, including journalists and Ministry of Foreign Affairs bureaucrats. This
made him reflect, ‘I was scared at how little I knew’. ‘I was appalled at the
things we didn’t try to know, and at the amount of information we have at our
hands which, despite living in an era where we are free to sift through it all,
we never questioned the significance of that. I began to think about the
credibility of the news or information that until then I had only been
skim-reading.’
Suspicion about establishment
of new university
Yoshioka Erika (Shim Eun-kyung) is a newspaper journalist
who springs to action after receiving an anonymous tip-off indicating a
suspicious establishment of a new university. Sugihara Takumi (Matsuzaka Tori)
is a junior bureaucrat who entered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with high
ideals and is now on secondment to the Cabinet Information Research Office,
where he is ordered by his boss to play the role of spin doctor, creating
scandals about those who get in the way of the government. These two characters’
fates are brought together after a tragedy involving a Cabinet Office official
who was Sugihara’s superior at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Director Fujii says, ‘I didn’t want to make a smug film that
blended documentary with fiction’. Consequently, the material in the original
that was closer to ‘non-fiction’ was re-written for the final product. Says
Fujii, ‘The most important thing is not to portray reality using real names,
but to create a movie that can discuss with viewers how an individual within a
group can square up to that group. I argued that, in that case, it should be
fiction. I wanted to create a film where viewers would put themselves in the
shoes of a journalist or bureaucrat and (directly) question their
emotions. I wanted it to be a movie that
sought out the two protagonists’ feelings evoked by the events rather than the
actual events taking place.’
The battle between
the Cabinet Information Research Office and the media is cutthroat. Fujii once
heard a bureaucrat say, ‘The only way to respond to someone being attacked is
to attack’, a phrase that does not problematize Cabinet Information Research
Office leaks such as those that manipulate public opinion. ‘Bureaucrats and
journalists probably have opposing views of right and wrong. Their existence is
mutually exclusive, but their respective commitment to the ideas of ‘for the
people’ and ‘communicating the truth’ is, I believe unwavering.’
A sense of distance
from journalists
A bit about the two actors who play the protagonists. Shim
Eun-kyung is a talented Korean actress who has been noted for her roles in
several Korean films, and who, as of this year, has been active in a string of
stage and screen productions. Matsuzaka Tori is an actor whose development as
an actor has been conspicuous; his competence is well noted as a result of his representation
of diverse characters, ranging from a kind, good hearted young man to an outlaw
with a dark secret. Against a backdrop of a complicated past, with her
sensitive expressions, Shim shows us what’s going on inside. Meanwhile,
Matsuzaka acts with a depth of expression as Sugihara becomes torn between two
conflicting ideas of what is right. Director Fujii’s stage management elevates
both of them to their highest capacity.
In the first half, the activities of the journalists working
at the newspaper are filmed in the shaky camera style, giving a sense of instability.
‘In fact, I deliberately filmed that section from afar with a telephoto lens.
It was a bit provocative, but I wanted to show how wide the gulf is between
journalists and the audience.’ The story progresses and with each step the
journalists take towards the truth, that ‘sense of distance’ changes. ‘It is
precisely because it is this type of production that I wanted to take great
care with elements such as the sense of distance and the visual technique. I would
be pleased if the viewers understood that the director’s message is that we are
attempting to bring [the journalists], who seemed so far away, closer.’
The conception of the idea for this movie can be traced to
the book ‘Shinbun Kisha’, by the Tokyo Shinbun reporter, Mochizuki Isoko, who
has continued asking questions in spite of backlash and blatant obstacles she encountered
from government representatives during Chief Cabinet Secretary press conferences.
Scenes such as television footage of round-table
discussions between Mochizuki and others, including former Ministry of
Education Vice Minister Maekawa Kihei; and recent real-life events, such as
excessive Cabinet Office interference, bureaucratic sontaku, official document falsification and rape suspicions are
dotted throughout the movie, creating a vivid impression that it is
intrinsically connected to ‘precisely now’. One can see glimpses of these even
during the fiction sections that are constructed as universal human dramas, and
this ‘insistence on sticking to the here and now’ further elevates the
entertainment value of the film. This is because while there are movies around
the world that depict historic clashes between government and media, there are
hardly any that depict the ‘on the edge of now’ events happening in the here
and now. Fujii is full of expectations, ‘I have never seen a Japanese movie
like this. I’m looking forward to seeing how it’s received by the audience.’
‘When in a group situation, sometimes you end up twisting
your beliefs as a consequence of reading the mood and pre-judging other people’s
thoughts. I think contemporary Japanese society, and in particular, my
generation, is especially good at this, but I wanted to challenge that. I want
each individual to think seriously about how they can go about changing their
own lives.’
Fujii
Michihito bioblurb:
Born in
1986. Filmmaker, film director, screenwriter. Co-founded ‘BABEL LABEL’ with
filmmaker Shima Kentaro. Nihon University College of Art, cinema department,
director course graduate. Mentored by screenwriter Aoki Kenji. Debuted with
Isaka Kotaro’s ‘Oh Father’. Has also worked on advertisements, such as those
for Pocket Monster, and American Express. Netflix original ‘Bushido no Gurume’
and ‘100man en no Onnatachi’ released in 2017. ‘Ao no Kaerimichi’ and ‘Day and
Night’ released in 2018 and 2019 respectively.
‘Shimbun
Kisha’ info
© 2019 ‘Shimbun Kisha’ filmpartners
Director: Fujii Michihito
Original draft: Mochizuki Isoko ‘Shimbun
Kisha’ (Kakukawa Shinsho), Kawamura Mitsunobu
Featuring: Shim Eun-kyung, Matsuzaka
Tori, Honda Tsubasa, Okayama Amane, Nishida Naomi, Takahashi Kazuya, Kitamura
Yukiya, Tanaka Tetsuji
2019, Japan, 113 minutes.
[1]
Sontaku was the
2017 ‘Word of the Year’. It refers
to the practice of anticipating another person’s feelings or thoughts even
before that person is themselves aware of them. It was word of the year due to
its apparent adoption by those in political and bureaucratic positions to avoid
ruffling the feathers of superiors and thus enable the illegal activities of
those superiors. (Not in original, added
by translator.)
