Of Love and Law (2017): Directed by Hikaru Toda. Running
Time: 94 minutes.
Rating: 4/4
These are trying times for
humanity. Faced with societal regression and environmental catastrophe,
it is all too easy for those with heart and compassion to fall into despair at
the state of things. This makes examples like Kazu and Fumi all the more
necessary for those of us facing this quandary, so that we don't forget that we
who yearn for a better tomorrow are not few, but legion.
A gay couple who also happen to be
lawyers, these two have dedicated their professional lives to combating
discrimination against minorities and disenfranchised groups of all
stripes. This film by the remarkable Hiraku Toda uses a selection of
cases the pair are engaged with as a window into their lives and worldviews, on
what sorts of successes they are able to celebrate and the failures they have
no choice but to endure.
The sampling of issues they are
involved in include, but are by no means limited to, juveniles charged with
crimes, a provocative female artist being suied over her "dangerous"
vagina art, ethnic minorities, the LGBTQ community, and the cases of
"unregistered" Japanese. That last one refers to a small but
not-insignificant number of people who, due to a very specific bureaucratic
loophole regarding marriage law, the Japanese government literally can't
recognize as people.
A film just focusing on the
biographies and personalities of these two individuals would no doubt have been
fascinating and moving enough, but the movie is smart enough to go the extra
mile, looking beyond them to create a cross-section representation of
disenfranchisement that leads the viewer to consider how both written law and
broader culture in Japan (and, by extension, everywhere else) restricts and
punishes those who, in any number of ways, stick in of the crowd.
As it goes on, you realize the film
is less about putting these two on a saintly pedestial than about holding up
their silent courage in the face of all the obstacles they have to
endure. For all their love and tenderness, they bear plenty of emotional
scars from the myriad setbacks and tragedies they've experienced, and in the
movie's most heart-wrenching moments it looks this squarely in the eye and
doesn't blink.
It is eminently heartening and
always necessary to be reminded of all those, everywhere in the world, fighting
the good fight and refusing to cow to the darkness. Few films strike me
like this one did. This is the definition of an essential, must-see work
of cinema.
-Noah
Franc
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