The public was not “sharply divided” over the state funeral for former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, but the issue did highlight a deep problem for democracy in Japan, filmmaker Arata Oshima said.

His latest documentary, “Kokuso no Hi” (The day of the state funeral), was first screened in Japan on Sept. 16, nearly a year after the extravagant event was held in Tokyo on Sept. 27, 2022.

Media reports said public opinion was deeply split over whether the taxpayer-funded ceremony should be held.
Oshima, 54, however, presents a different view in the film.

Footage of voters in 10 cities across Japan showed the public didn’t really care too much about the issue. In many cases, they appeared more concerned about what others and the government thought.

FOLLOWING THE CROWD

Oshima covered an opposition politician for “Naze Kimi wa Sori Daijin ni Narenai no ka” (Why You Can’t Be Prime Minister), a 2020 film, and followed an election campaign for “Kagawa Ikku” (Kagawa No. 1 district), his 2021 work.

He said producing those documentaries gave him many opportunities to learn about voting behavior and the thoughts of voters.

“They did not discuss policies or the candidates’ personalities,” Oshima said. “I learned that, when casting ballots, people often just followed the crowd, worried about what others might think, or voted for whoever a neighborhood boss had recommended.”

He continued: “I asked myself, ‘What’s this temperament of the Japanese?’ My inner focus shifted from politicians per se to that Japanese temperament.”

Surveys by The Asahi Shimbun and other media outlets indicated that opponents were outnumbering supporters of the state funeral.

“Figures showed that opponents were growing in number from day to day, but I was skeptical of that widespread view,” Oshima said. “People, after all, probably just didn’t like being on the minority side. Eligible voters of Japan are also the ones who gave a landslide victory to the Liberal Democratic Party in the Upper House election that was held two days after Abe’s death.”

Abe, who was killed on July 8, 2022, was an LDP member.

“I thought that only a few voters were probably either strongly opposed to or strongly in favor of the state funeral,” the director said.

To present simple “sketches” of people in the film, Oshima dispensed with narration and music, and locations and times were conveyed through subtitles.

Emphasizing a sense of unvarying routine, he showed snippets of the lives of voters.

He filmed customers lining up outside a pachinko parlor just before it opened. And he interviewed one family member posing for a wedding photo.

Some people would not talk about politics, which they regarded as taboo.

A Nara taxi driver said about the state funeral, “It’s too late to stage protests because it’s a government decision.”

A Nagasaki man said: “Protests could have been staged only until yesterday (the day before the state funeral). It’s too disgraceful.”

Oshima took issue with the cabbie’s words.

“Saying ‘because it’s a government decision’ is tantamount to renouncing democracy,” the director said. “We, members of the public, should be the ones who make the decisions. And we have the option of replacing the government if elections are held.”

Oshima said voters can express their will through protests when there are no elections, and people who simply accept government decisions lack awareness that they are sovereign members who share responsibility for the decisions made by the government.

“But I think there are quite a number of conformists who obediently submit to all decisions made by the authorities,” he continued. “They don’t stand out from others in what they do. There is such strong peer pressure. And all that comes under the influence of a Japanese environment that resembles a (closed) village community.”

Asked about his creative stance as a documentarian, Oshima said: “I like films that make the world look slightly different after you watch them. That’s exactly the sort of works that I always wish to be making.”

He quoted one female viewer of his latest documentary as saying, “I hope that people who watch this film 30 years from now will think, ‘Oh, the Japanese of bygone years were quite thoughtless about politics.’”

Oshima said emphatically: “That vision is premised on a future of Japan where every single person is more self-reliant. And that’s what I wish will happen.”