Ushiku (2021): Directed and produced by Thomas Ash. Running Time: 87 minutes.
Rating: 4/4
The last decade has seen huge spikes in refugees and migrants all around the world seeking safe haven from wars, natural disasters, or other depravations. As a result, many wealthy nations, particularly the US and Europe, have had to confront a host of challenging and difficult questions regarding their own complicity in refugee issues and their ethical responsibilities to human rights. Japan has so far not been one of these countries forced to make a public moral reckoning with this issue. This is in large part due to the fact that, while there most certainly ARE refugees and migrants who go to Japan and apply for asylum, there has never been one major crisis, one unavoidable focusing event, that has turned the attention of both the Japanese and international public to this issue. That has allowed the details of where and how migrants and refugees are currently treated within Japan itself to stay more or less under wraps. Ushiku, the latest film by Thomas Ash and named after one of the main sites where migrants and asylum applicants are held, seeks to provide this much-needed catalyst.
The Ushiku complex- which, let us not mince words, is a de facto prison- operates under the strictest secrecy, with absolutely no pictures or videos allowed out and any written correspondence with its inmates subject to extensive censorship. As such, the film's director, Thomas Ash, had to resort to creative use of hidden cameras to record his visits to inmates there. It's important to note that he does this with the full permission and support of the inmates themselves, who are desperate for their names and stories to not simply be swept under the rug and ignored. Ash is no stranger to tackling sensitive subject matter or having to think outside the box to make his films. His whole filmography deals with either sensitive or controversial topics, especially surrounding Japanese health systems, and another recent film he worked on, Boys for Sale, also required considerable secrecy to obtain interviews with its subjects.
The need for such extreme measures so as to ensure that the video testimonies he collects were able to see the light of day lends itself to a very basic structure for the film. Recordings of phone calls with the inmates are set to an entirely black screen (except for subtitles), and video conversations are mostly in the same room; dimly-lit, with a dirty glass barrier separating both parties, with the focus solely on the individuals relating their stories as much as they can in the visitation time allotted. Despite the difficulties, and even a few setbacks (Ash was briefly barred from the prison over suspician that he was, in fact, recording things), he and his crew are able to enlist the help of other activists and politicians, including a member of the Japanese Parlaiment who later lays into the ministers in charge of the prison in a hearing sequence that is easily the film's most gripping moment. It quickly becomes very clear that no one in charge expected to ever have to answer actual questions about the inhumane conditions that the roughly one thousand plus inmates of these types of facilities suffer under.
And make no mistake, they are truly inhumane conditions. Denied both asylum within Japan and safe passage to a different country, these people are subjected to passive and active racism and a constant litany of abuses from the officers who run the facility, ranging from casual neglect to direct physical and sexual abuse. One trans woman interviewed is callously kept in the facility for men, despite officials being fully aware of her identity. Inmates regularly report suicidal tendencies and even attempt suicide, yet are denied care even when doctors try to insist that they be allowed to see patients. One video, made by the guards themselves and eventually released via court order, shows an agonizingly drawn-out scene where one inmate is dragged around and very nearly choked into unconsciousness, simply because he had the gall to complain when an officer started to hit him and then tried to cover up the fact. As an American grappling with years of video after video out of the US showing just how thoroughly cops are willing to brutalize the people they are supposed to "protect" when they are convinced that they will never face any consequences whatsoever, I found this scene especially hard to stomach.
Even when small victories like short-term releases are to be had- and in fact, the Coronavirus pandemic provided something of a silver lining here, where more inmates than ever before were able to win longer and longer releases- are deliberately made as bitter and as dehumanizing as possible. Even when out of this jail, these people are cut off from health care, work, and support of any kind other than what friends and family are willing to donate as private citizens. They are literally given nothing to do except wait to be shuttled back behind locked doors. It is a recipe for despair, disillusionment, and destructive rage.
At the end of the day, the questions raised by this film center around the basic, fundamental human right to live in decency and security. Facilities like Ushiku and the latent racism in much of Japanese society regarding foreigners of any sort are in direct violation of the spirit of human rights that are supposed to undergird the international order, never mind violating the democratic spirit that "modern" nations like the US and Japan are supposed to champion. Just because Ushiku is not on the same scale as concentration camps for children in the United States or as blatant as the rising political xenophobia infecting much of Europe does not make it any less egregious a sin. This film is a much-needed and far-overdo revelation of one of Japan's dirtiest secrets, and should serve as a call to action for anyone, Japanese or otherwise, who truly wishes to see us birth a better tomorrow.
-Noah
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