Turning a lens on the past

Turning a lens on the past

Hera Diani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Sexual relationships just aren't the same anymore for
Japanese documentary filmmaker Tomoko Kana.

Ever since she started filming Mardiyem last year, sex has
stopped being fun and games for Kana, 29.

Mardiyem is Kana's first long documentary film, a 92-minute
work which tells the story of Mardiyem, a former Indonesian
comfort woman. It will be screened on Tuesday at the Jakarta
International Film Festival (JIFFest).

Being involved with several women who were forced into sexual
slavery and raped over 15 times a day had an effect on the
filmmaker.

"It was like it was me who was being raped. It made me feel
afraid to make love to my boyfriend. He's my lover and I like him
very much, but sometimes I had the feeling he was in the Japanese
army. I felt so frustrated," she told The Jakarta Post recently.

"I felt dizzy and everything .... My boyfriend didn't
understand at first. But when I explained it to him, he
understood," she said.

Making a documentary film about women who served as sex
slaves, or "jugun ianfu", for the Japanese army in the Second
World War has been Kana's obsession since she was 13 years old
and first learned about the issue at school.

"It was so shocking for me. I was so surprised that my
grandfather's generation could do such a horrible thing to
women," said the Tokyo resident.

After graduating from Japan Women's University in Tokyo, where
she majored in Asian history with a focus on World War II, she
began working at Japanese television station NHK.

Kana approached the station about making a documentary film on
the comfort women, but her vision proved difficult to realize.

"It's because the Japanese government wanted to deny the
facts. So many people from the older generation wanted to hide
the truth," said Kana, who funded the film herself.

After working as a director at NHK for more than eight years,
Kana quit her job to pursue her obsession.

"I just wanted to record why those men did such a thing.
Within five to 10 years, those comfort women will die. I'm a
Japanese woman, I think I have some responsibility to record the
testimony of comfort women for younger generations," she said.

Her contacts led her to Indonesia, even though former Japanese
military comfort women are also found in other countries, such as
Korea.

"Of the other Asian countries, I like Indonesia. It just feels
different. I love the place, the food, the atmosphere, the
people ... ," Kana asserted.

Here she met Mardiyem, now 73 years old, a former comfort
woman who lives in Yogyakarta. From September last year to early
this year, Kana documented her life.

"I chose Mardiyem because she is the most vocal of the former
comfort women (who are demanding an apology and compensation from
the Japanese government).

"She has a strong personality and is very noble. She always
sits straight, full of pride and full of passion. That was why I
chose her as the main character," she said.

Kana followed Mardiyem as far as Banjarmasin, South
Kalimantan, to trace Mardiyem's past.

She also followed Mardiyem and her fellow former comfort women
to Tokyo last December, where they testified before the Women's
International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan's Military Sexual
Slavery.

Making the film, Kana said, was exhausting because she shot it
continuously from morning to night.

But hardest of all were the emotional aspects.

"I had to ask them difficult questions, like how many times
they were raped a day. But I had to, otherwise I would not have
been able to show other people how bad it was," Kana said.

The stories of the comfort women were grim, which left Kana
depressed.

"Most of the ibu-ibu (older women) live in poverty. Most of
them couldn't marry because they can't have children.

"And when it comes to sex ... I like sex, but I only do it
with my lover. But for them, they don't have sexual relationships
with their lovers. I mean, sex is a wonderful experience but for
them it's always been violence and violence ... ," she said.

Mardiyem was completed last July and screened at Japan's
Yamagata Documentary Film Festival in early October, where it
received a good response from younger Japanese.

However, she said she was worried that she would return to
Japan and find that some people opposed her film.

"Recently, there was a Korean film about Japanese comfort
women, and some people from a right-wing party came to the
theater and tried to slash the screen.

"I'm very worried, but I'm not the one who was raped 20 to 30
times a day, so it's OK," she said.

As for the problem with her boyfriend, it's settled now.

"I told him, 'If you have to go to war, please don't rape
women'. And he said he wouldn't," Kana said.