Long-term psychological trauma is thoughtfully rendered in the excellent Black Box Diaries

CW: discussions of sexual abuse, rape below

Director Shiori Itō begins her documentary Black Box Diaries on a deeply personal note addressed to viewers. Against images of raindrops hitting a pool of water, on-screen text appears. This Itō-penned text appears in a font evoking a handwritten note. These words warn viewers with histories of experiencing sexual abuse that some of the events and terminology in the subsequent movie could be triggering for them. After all, this feature chronicles the psychological aftermath and lawsuit related to Itō’s allegations of rape. To help these viewers, Itō suggests doing breathing exercises during extremely harrowing parts of Black Box Diaries. “That’s always helped me,” she reassures before saying “Now let me tell you my story.”

Right from its very first frame, Black Box Diaries distinctively demonstrates an empathy for sexual abuse and assault survivors. Both humanity and singular filmmaking endure throughout the rest of this striking documentary.

Itō had many ambitions for where her life could go. When she was just 26, though, her life's trajectory changed. On April 3, 2015, Itō was allegedly raped by Noriyuki Yamaguchi at a Sheraton hotel. For two years, Itō worked tirelessly to cooperate with authorities in trying to receive justice for this crime. However, Yamaguchi, a close friend of Japan’s then-prime minister Shinzo Abe, is a powerful figure. Arrest warrants for this man abruptly go nowhere. Police officers claim there isn’t enough evidence. Itō keeps hitting brick walls in searching of something resembling closure to this horrific experience.

A little over two years after that fateful April night, Itō speaks at a public press conference about her allegations against Yamaguchi. Immediately, a wave of public disdain greets this woman. No matter what country you live in, there’s always an innate hatred for people coming forward to accuse powerful figures of abuse and cruelty. Anita Hill. Christine Blasey Ford. Amber Heard. Somebody daring to step forward and disrupt the status quo, not to mention highlighting how dehumanizing behavior towards marginalized genders can exist anywhere, is typically demonized rather than celebrated. Black Box Diaries reflects this reality in a brief sequence playing a flurry of voices condemning Itō against footage of people hurriedly moving across a walkway in Japan.

One of the especially horrifying responses is a man claiming that Itō should “be choked” for daring to “criticize Japan” with her allegations. Playing these recordings against this footage subliminally suggests that these comments can come from anyone, not just specific DJs or news personalities. It’s one of several ways Black Box Diaries ingeniously juxtaposes essential audio with seemingly disconnected imagery. In the earliest days of Itō’s post-assault aftermath, she was talking to investigators behind closed doors. There were no security cameras or documentary crew capturing their interactions.

However, Itō did record these critical conversations reflecting the apathy many law enforcement officers had towards her case. Within Black Box Diaries as a film, these interactions are placed against mundane environments. These include a brightly lit tunnel or trees softly billowing in the wind in a park. In the process, Itō’s filmmaking puts viewers directly into her headspace. These sequences mimic the sensation of Itō driving to work or sitting outside while recollections of having her experiences dismissed play in her head. It doesn’t matter where you are or what time of day it is. For sexual trauma survivors, reminders of the past and how others perceive you can manifest anywhere. That reality is excellently reflected in the precise visual/audio relationship during these Black Box Diaries segments.

Eventually, once Itō goes public with her testimony, cameras do follow her around every day. While powerful figures in Japanese society want to silence her, these omnipresent cameras reaffirm Itō’s existence. Happily, this critical point in the Black Box Diaries runtime does not open up a deluge of tired documentary cinema visual staples. Characters do not sit center-frame and didactically explain the intricacies of how Japan handles sex crimes. Nor do well-known experts far removed from Itō’s everyday life often dominate the frame. Instead, Black Box Diaries lingers on off-the-cuff footage of Itō preparing for court appearances, prepping her book (also called Black Box Diaries), and just trying to exist as a human being.

Within these intimate images, viewers get to really know the finer nuances of Itō as a person. Specifically, Black Box Diaries emphasizes Itō’s proclivity towards gallows humor as a coping device. At one point, she and her friend believe that somebody’s bugged her apartment. This inspires Itō to call up a shop to inquire if they have anti-wiretapping devices. After a moment, she turns to the camera and observes how out of control her life becomes that she can use the phrase “anti-wiretapping” so nonchalantly. Similar casual moments demonstrate her very specific style of coping with her unimaginable status quo. A willingness to explore these everyday parts of her life makes later moments like her exhausted declaration “I’m not a figure, I’m not propaganda for anything” hit home. Black Box Diaries is a deeply effective testament to Shiori Itō as a three-dimensional human being.

That quality informs the most emotionally raw Black Box Diaries sequences concerning the long-term psychological trauma of sexual abuse. Especially unforgettable is a scene where Itō attends a women in journalism conference. Here, other ladies recount experiences of sexual torment and harassment. Afterward, Itō addresses the crowd and confesses that, for one of the first times since that fateful April 2015 night, she feels “covered in blankets” rather than emotionally naked in front of the world. Tears in her eyes, she remarks “I feel lots of hope” hearing these testimonies.

All this vulnerability is brought to the screen with some quietly assured filmmaking from Itō. Black Box Diaries as a film doesn’t smother this footage in a ham-fisted score hammering home the atmosphere of this scene. Rapid-fire cuts are absent in favor of lengthier shots. There’s a sparseness to these images simulating viewers witnessing these moments unfolding in real time. That confidently streamlined approach lets the testimony of Itō and other sexual trauma survivors take precedence. As Itō herself knows from this conference, sometimes just the right words are all you need to touch someone’s soul.

This raw, quiet filmmaking approach also astonishes in a later sequence depicting Itō lying her head on a friend’s lap as she recounts physically encountering Yamaguchi again in a courtroom. An unblinking camera captures Itō recalling this fateful moment. This allows viewers to watch in real-time as a sliver of confidence creeps onto her face as she gets deeper into her anecdote. The magnitude of her confronting this man and staring him in the eye again is finally dawning on her. “I’m still here,” Itō remarks on what she hoped her presence would communicate to Yamaguchi, “I’m listening.” It’s a mesmerizingly intimate scene enhanced through Itō’s confidently stripped-down visual style.

There is no way to fully escape trauma. You don’t “conquer” it, you just find different ways to live with it. Even in one of the final Black Box Diaries scenes, Itō notes that, in the future, she’ll “still have to face wounds…[there’s] still so much to be done.” This documentary concludes not with a definitive triumph, but a recognition of the long psychological road ahead. As Itō’s thoughtful opening on-screen text demonstrates, though, there are ways to cope with the horrors of daily life. Art like Black Box Diaries can also help one process the unspeakable.