VIDEO ESSAY
Invitations & Ultimatums
期待と最後通牒
The neo-cons, a new breed of previously disenchanted powerbrokers advocating an aggressive and hegemonic foreign policy, gain access to the White House, and Japan is led by a Prime Minister who is more than willing to play cheerleader to the U.S. Empire. The U.S. leads an illegal war on Iraq and Japanese policymakers bend over backwards to please them.
Meanwhile, life on the cultural, political, and interpersonal levels goes on unchanged, as Japanese and Americans seem numb to the destruction wrought by their leaders and the ways in which they themselves are complicit in what is happening. The director, an American permanent resident of Japan, offers a glimpse of both cultures against this backdrop. Alienated from one culture and never fully assimilated into the other, she finds a perspective somewhere in between. Global events unfold and people are interviewed on the streets of Kyoto, Osaka, and San Francisco in an increasingly tense political atmosphere.
As the director sees her day-to-day cross-cultural experiences reflected on the global political stage, the reality of what it means to be an American living overseas at this moment in history sets in. Interactions between cultures, between governments, and between individuals are inextricably linked, and no change, positive or negative, can be effective or enduring if it does not occur on all three levels. This is revealed in the most meaningful way as we watch these two societies become responsible for the destruction of life in a thirdland far away.
攻撃的かつヘゲモニー的外交を主張するネオコンがホワイトハウスを占拠し、米帝国の「チアガール」になりたがっている総理大臣が日本の先頭に立つ。つまりは、米国がイラクへ侵略・占領をしながら、日本の内閣は米国大統領の期待に添うため何でもする、ということ。他方で、日米両国民はイラクへの侵略・占領と無関係に日常の生活を続けている。日米両政府の破壊的方策について、また、自分たちがこの方策にどのように共犯しているかについて、日米両国民は無関心。
これらを背景に、日本に永住する米国人監督が日米両文化の断片を提示する。出身国（米国）との心的隔たり、定住国（日本）でのガイジン的処遇、両国の文化間で日米文化とは違う感覚に出くわす。京都、大阪、サンフランシスコでのインタービューのさなか、国連では議論が日に日に白熱。緊迫した国際情勢の推移のなか、ある些細な日常的関係が国際関係を象徴していることを発見、米国人が米国外に住む実情を垣間見る。文化間、政府間、個人と個人との間、これらが三位一体のままで変化をしないと、ポジティブであってもネガティブであっても、変化は継続されない。日米両国から遠く離れているある国での悲劇に自らが関わってきた経緯を認識することで、文化・政府・個人の三位一体があらわになる。 |
