The Ethics of Japanese Social Documentary in the Wake of 3/11

ABSTRACT Over the past eight years, independent documentary filmmakers in Japan have produced over one hundred works concerning the 3/11 disaster in Tōhoku. Since the controversy over Mori Tatsuya's film 311, the issue of documentary ethics has loomed large in the discussion of these films. Specifically: how may we understand the filmmaker's social and ethical responsibility in documenting a disaster such as 3/11? Despite the importance of this sensitive issue for audiences, it has received little scholarly attention. In this article, I analyse three exemplary films which are directly concerned with 3/11: Ōmiya Kōichi’s The Sketch of Mujō, Fujiwara Toshi's No Man’s Zone, and Funahashi Atsushi's Nuclear Nation. While all three films focus on the survivors of the disaster, each takes a distinctive approach: Ōmiya reflects on the interplay between impermanence [mujō] and collective memory; Fujiwara queries our presuppositions and place as spectators of disaster; and Funahashi explores the system of power that maintains the nuclear village. I propose an axiographic analysis of these films as a contribution to our understanding of the disaster, shedding light on not only the ethical stance of the filmmakers, but also on the mechanisms of the larger, mass-mediated image regime in contemporary Japan.