Middleburg Review: “Black Box Diaries”

Black Box Diaries (Shiori Ito, 2024) 4 out of 5 stars

In 2017, young journalist Shiori Ito effectively launched the Japanese #MeToo movement with the publication of her book Black Box, which recounts her 2015 rape by Noriyuki Yamaguchi, an older, more established figure in the profession. Beyond the ordeal of the assault, Ito also had to confront the bureaucratic and societal hurdles she faced to press charges against a man who was close friends with, and biographer of, then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. In her documentary Black Box Diaries, Ito explores her harrowing journey to both seek justice and break down long-standing barriers to true gender equality in Japan.

The result is an intimate experience in which Ito is both filmmaker and subject. She peels back the layers of her external persona to show the raw vulnerability that lies beneath her seemingly steely resolve. Never afraid to share her feelings, Ito crafts a fully rounded self-portrait where she is just as likely to cry as to laugh, suffer despair and joy in equal measure. Her favorite song, Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive,” serves as an appropriate recurring audio motif.

Jumping around from past to present, we start at the moment just before the book comes out and then eventually make our way through the back-and-forth of then to now. Friends and family express concern for her well-being. Is it, in fact, such a good idea to air the details of her case for all to see? Her primary motivation is the fact that this “case” has gone nowhere. The corruption of local and national officials has led to zero results.

When she first started to realize that her abuser was protected from on high, Ito began secretly taping her conversations with police investigators and members of the judiciary. At the same time, she would record video diaries as a way to note down what was happening, as a form of protection from those who would silence her. When the gears of the system grind against you, pushing forward is hard.

These recordings would serve as primary source materials for the book, and here they form the background of much of the narrative, bolstered by everything captured since. Ito takes us through the shadowy intrigue of recalcitrant judges, showing how the growing publicity created by her book leads to more women speaking out. Slowly, a movement builds. Time’s up.

If only it were that simple to change the world. Yamaguchi fights back, and not everyone supports Ito. The fight is a difficult one. She and a friend find possible wiretaps in her apartment. Abe denies obstructing the investigation on the floor of Parliament. But Ito’s story is told, and enough people listen. Evolution, if not outright revolution, appears possible.

It’s a taut real-life thriller, bracingly told. The occasional narrative confusion notwithstanding—including some of the murky details of Yamaguchi’s countersuit—the effect is to shock and inspire in equal measure. These diaries are no longer locked away in some hidden black box, but are open for all to see. There can be no turning back.

Christopher Llewellyn Reed

Christopher Llewellyn Reed is a film critic, filmmaker, and educator, as well as Film Festival Today's Editor. A member of both the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and the Washington DC Area Film Critics Association (WAFCA), and a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic, Chris is, in addition, lead film critic at Hammer to Nail and the author of Film Editing: Theory and Practice.