Well, consider me flabbergasted. Imagine reading about an obscure anarcho-nihilist Japanese girl born in 1903 from as long as 5 years back, buying her prison memoirs as well as studying any other English material ever published around her, and then finding out a high-budget Korean production about her came out this year. I mean, it's really weird indeed. Only a scrap of academic and libertarian-related editorials have ever been published about Kaneko Fumiko since her death in prison (1926), and literally nothing anticipated this timely release. Well, if you can imagine that, take a bit of this: it's also a meticulously well-researched production, which beautifully puts together many of the uncertainties and accounts of different historical sources into a consistent and entertaining film. Also, neat accuracy in effects, historical clothing and overall atmosphere. Can you ask for more? I certainly won't.
Yet, I've been biased and unfair in this brief introduction of the movie at hand (concerning translated title and picking up the Japanese cover). For this is, as stated above, a 2017 Korean production directed by Lee Joon-ik [이준익], and titled after Park Yeol [박열], the anarchist Korean exiled in Japan during a tumultous era in which his country was forcibly anexed by Japanese Imperialism. Both Park Yeol and Fumiko Kaneko, after very intrincate and in fact bleak life trajectories, met in Tokyo and decided to live together as political advocates for anarchy and social progress, publishing pamphlets under the flag of a political cell of their own, Futeisha (不逞社, "The Outlaws", took from one of the many pejoratives Japanese used to refer to Koreans, second-class citizens of an occupied territory). Among the many subjects of inquiry and demand was the condition in which working class people, Koreans, women and many others were being heavily dehumanized and kept down by the Japanese Government under the pretense of progress and a new, industrial-imperial 'civilized' Japan, a case many times exemplified during the Meiji-Taishō eras they experienced. The greatest example, and the event which propelled them to universal History: the mindless massacre of Koreans and political dissindents carried out at the hands of both law enforcement and vigilante mobs during the Great Kantō earthquake [関東大地震] of 1923, a defining moment in the history of Japan.
Central to the film is the couple of lovers, and an exemplar treatment of their separate historical personalities is a crowning achievement of the script. Both actors (Lee Je-hoon as Park, Choi Hee-seo as Fumiko) exudate charisma and equally share the spotlight, both speaking Korean and Japanese (subtitled in Korean in my version, for which I greatly thank the always handy Russian Internet). I in fact took Choi Hee-seo for a Japanese actress, for she in fact speaks just as if she were native speaker. A great portrayal made of every character speaking as they should, at various degrees of courtesy (the Japanese of the courts of authorities differing from that of Fumiko or the vigilante groups). The Koreans refusal of speaking Japanese to their captors is also historically accurate and makes the film really interesting to listen to. The script also quotes at lenght written declarations of their historical counterparts, and the delivery is overall great, even if sometimes indulging in comedic stunts necessary to the development of the film and attention of the viewer. For the real story behind the plot was a dark time in Japan: beatings, extrajuditial executions and torture were common procedures against anarchists, socialists and Korean ''troublemakers''. Even political liberalism was lingering at the time, as its representatives frequently ended up supporting the ''patriotic effort'' that was to develop into an aggresive and jingoist Kokutai [國體] marching into international war and conquest.
As the setting of the film is Japan, Fumiko's character actually gets an edge in protagonism. For Koreans were in fact expected to despise Japan, but treason coming from home (and in fact, a woman) was an outrage at the time. Another reason: a fundamental historical source was in fact written in prison by Fumiko herself: the heart-breaking and no-nonsense autobiography entitled ''What made me do what I did'' [何が私をこうさせたか]. I'll review it in the future, but let me point out how fate can be a real mockery: for Kaneko Fumiko's name [金子 文子] would translate as 金子: 'child blessed with riches' and 文子: 'child gifted with writing' or 'learning'. Kaneko Fumiko was born to a really poor family, and her parents kept her unregistered, eventually abandoning her so she did not attend school with any constancy until later in life. Only years later she actually traveled to her aunts household in colonial Korea and was able to learn some writing. In return, she was heavily punished at a regular basis (even physically) at hands of her extended family, and even attempted suicide by drowning at age 15. When returning to Japan, the harsh treatment of Koreans by the Japanese colonial families was also burnt in her mind.
Back in Japan, and after escaping her family and going to Tokyo, Fumiko started selling newspapers and attempting other humble, poorly paid jobs while studying. A classmate named Hatsuyo Niiyama introduced her to Nietzsche, Artsybashev and, notably, Stirner. Even if poor, Fumiko was elated: for she deemed learning, and writing in particular, as the redemption of her world, her innermost dream since a children. Taking all into account, the fact that she could write an entire, compelling book while imprisoned in Death Row is astonishing. Also, we come to understand her sympathy towards Park Yeol's Korean Independence movement. Her motivations, though, were different from Park's, for, as Stirner, she deemed ''fixed causes'' as something to avoid in the midst of a constant, all-encompassing rebelling against authority and coercion, driven by one's own decision over his or her own life. Her Futeisha articles openly despised the Emperor figure, and called for a radical transfiguration of society, of which she eventually grew tired, emphasizing the philosophical aspects of ''doing that which has to be done''. Her evaluations of life deepened to the extremes of life and death and, with both Park Yeol and her waiting for the veredict, she often asked for them both to be put to death. This is also contemplated in the movie, as well as their respective fates after the death penalty veredict, and the Imperial Pardon Fumiko broke to pieces the day before she was found hanged in her cell. Park Yeol would accept his life sentence, being released by occupying forces years later after Japan's defeat in WWII. As both of them married in prison, both are buried in Park's natal village, near
to Park Yeol Memorial Hall. Kaneko Fumiko thus rests in Korea, away from her natal Japan since her mother refused to take her body from prison (in fact she did not even know Fumiko had been in prison, and apologized for her behaviour to law enforcement and the Emperor). Park's Memorial is representative on how he (an anarchist) became a national martyr figure to South Korea in the face of the Japanese invasion and to this day.
Aside from the historical accuracy, Anarchist From The Colony has yet another virtue. Namely, reaching the extreme of recreating the very few pictures from both anarchists with the staff of the film in a convincing and completely unnecessary way that I deeply love. Rare pictures I years ago found in the Japanese Internet are purposefully used in camera framing. While this is true of the court room scene, exemplary is of course the one used as the Japanese cover: Fumiko sits on Park Yeol's lap while reading a book, with Park's hand resting on her chest while he gives a meaningful look. Knowing this would be their last photo together as a married couple, Fumiko had the idea of both making it unusual and one mocking the prison staff. In the context of highly traditional family policies enacted by the government, and of course the long history of Japanese patriarchy and suppresion of feminine sexuality, this now naive picture was tremendously scandalous. The photograph, now iconic, had an important political role at the time as Mikiso Hane states:
The picture presented to the general public was that of a degenerate, nefarious woman. A photograph of Fumiko sitting on Pak Yeol's lap was passed on to right-wing military officers, who used it to play up the decadent character of the ''traitors'' and also to criticize the existing party government, to discredit them for pampering the traitors. The public bought the image presented by the authorities. Even the radical and liberal reformers virtually condemned Fumiko to oblivion. Only one women's biographical dictionary listed her.
While the government's takedown of Futeisha and its pro-Korean cause devolved into a series of trials, forgeries and political maneuvering (very well portrayed in the film, in all its ambiguity) with the main charge -plotting to kill the Emperor- never really disclosed, others were not so lucky. In fact, the -at the time- best known Japanese anarchist Sakae Ōsugi and his partner, anarcho-feminist writer Itō Noe, were killed by patrol agents during the chaos following the earthquake. They were strangled and thrown into a well, their corpses and that of his 6 year old niece precariously hidden by a tatami. Other were rounded up and machined-gun to death in prison. That is why, even if Fumiko's writings concealed intentions of killing herself as a punishment and as an insult to the Imperial -divine- Pardon, doubts of a possible murder remained. Around this time, an actual attempt on Emperor Hirohito's life was actually carried out. But, ironically, in this attempt known as the Toranomon Incident, it was the wealthy son of an Imperial Diet member, Daisuke Nanba, who carried out the deed.
Overall a fantastic effort in historical reconstruction, this was movie of the year for me and a nice end of the year, considering that rip quality and subtitles came of recently (2018) since it aired in late 2017. Together with this, only Kinji Fukasaku [深作 欣二] has attempted, in his 1988 'A Chaos of Flowers' [華の乱], to portray the earthquake and its consequences on Japanese politics, from the point of view of gifted poet Akiko Yosano [与謝野 晶子] (1878-1942) and her many acquaintances. Quite a feat by the future director of Battle Royale, what do you know. Once more and before ending this entry, I'd like to speculate around what made Lee Joon-ik, a renowed director in Korea, bring up the past with such strenght in an era perfect to do exactly that, but when everybody seems reticent to risk a political movie. By its very nature, one thinks this movie gets under the nose of Shinzō Abe's refusal to issue apologies to Korea for a long time after the war. And also, while inserting itself within a list of South Korea's 'national' films (every young country, and especially in South Korea's awnkward geographical position, dreams of its nationhood in cinema), it does so by taking the risky path of praising anarchists all together. And, also, it reveals a quite mature approach to cinema in an industry all together elated
by the internationally scoped and saccharine 'K-Drama' recent approach to cinematography and music in Korea. While there is sweetness in this movie, there is also history and gut-wreckling scenes of violence. A legacy of pain has been shown to the world in a respectful approach. I'm writing this on January 4; January 20 is Fumiko's date of birth. She died aged 23.
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