SCREENING I Just Didn’t Do It

3 Star

I Just Didn’t Do It is being screened as part of The Japan Foundation’s Whose Film Is It Anyway? Programme, which is touring the UK until 28^th March 2012.

If you thought sweaty suits with big papers on the tube was as bad as it got, you should put yourself in the place of young Japanese women on crowded commuter trains who have to put up with the threat of groping on a daily basis. Supposedly based on an actual case in Japan where a man was falsely accused of molesting a 15-year-old girl, I Just Didn’t Do It tells the intricate story of what happens to those arrested for the crime, from the packed carriage to the last painful public court session.

"There is plenty to admire about I Just Didn’t Do It."

Running late and squeezed tight into a train carriage, Teppei is on his way to a job interview when a young girl accuses him of groping her. Taken to the train office and then the police station, Teppei is bullied and imprisoned.

When told he would be better to admit to the crime so he can pay the fine and get on with life, he decides to fight to prove his innocence and takes the matter to public court.

Over the course of several, painfully tense court sessions, the case is pored over by lawyers, judges, family and friends until the truth is discovered. But finding the truth is only half the battle in a justice system that finds guilty 99.9% of those caught up in it…

As comically lecherous as groping sounds on paper, I Just Didn’t Do It is at pains to show just how intrusive a crime it is. A bold close up of a school girl’s skirt being lifted while shaking fingers excitedly grope underneath the fabric make for a squirm inducing crime, the seriousness of which cannot be denied. This is just as well, as for Western audiences used to prolonged murder trials with theatrical courtroom flourishes, the idea of a two-and-a-half-hour film delving into the minutiae of a trial based around such a crime might be a tedious prospect. And while the running time may be just that little bit too long for most, and could do with some slimming down, I Just Didn’t Do It is a surprisingly engrossing drama.

You can forget heavyweight stars in designer suits, pacing up and down imposing courtrooms and making the gallery weep; the courtroom here is a bland, colourless, small room. Here we have a handful of onlookers packed into a small viewing gallery while a dozen officials preside over a case that could break a young man – and has already broken a young girl. This is not the glamorous, Boston Legal side of law, but the slow and infuriating side of an unfamiliar justice system. The tone of the courtroom scenes, like the rest of the film, is neutral. Music is kept to a minimum, the prison scenes avoid the usual clichés, and the family dramas are dispensed with in favour of a colourless palette which lets the script and the events on screen do the talking. In fact, the only splash of real colour comes from an inmate’s red shirt, and it is the only symbol of danger in a film which could be chocked full of them.

The enthusiasm of its creators is clear.

The enthusiasm of its creators is clear, and one could accuse them of attempting to ram down our throats just how unfair the Japanese justice system can be. The figure of 99.9% is repeated over and over again, as if we could possibly forget that this is the amount of people found guilty in the biased system. But the film doesn’t go far enough into the reasons for why this is. A few conversations that indicate a fear of appearing weak on the part of the judges apart, there is no in-depth exploration of the system’s flaws and no suggestions of how things can be improved. Sadly, this only creates a feel of a daytime TV movie about bad things that happen to good people. All well and good over ninety minutes, but with such a long running time, and such an important cultural issue being discussed, some depth and a bit more bravery on the part of the filmmakers would have elevated I Just Didn’t Do It – and perhaps have opened it up to a wider, world audience. This would also dampen the feeling for the audience that they may be watching agenda-based, soap-opera style preaching.

That’s not to say that there is no merit in the argument put forward by I Just Didn’t Do It’s premise and forensic-like look at the process of being incarcerated without a chance for bail, and subsequently prosecuted. Teppei’s ordeal in prison, while far from the nightmare experience of Midnight Express, is nevertheless chilling in its blandness. A restrained but provocative encounter at night with a fellow inmate doesn’t sensationalise life behind bars, but puts Teppei in the same position as a female grope victim. It’s possibly all the more chilling for the fact that he is both young and innocent, the same as the girl he is accused of touching.

An early arrest, when a gruff and arrogant man denies doing the same thing to another girl, ends with him pleading on his knees for things not to be taken further. He is later seen leaving police custody. One assumes he has paid his fine and is free to do the same thing again. This early exchange likens an arrest for groping to receiving a parking ticket. You pay it and you move on. The tragedy being portrayed here is that Teppei didn’t do it and is incapable of moving on. Frustratingly, but fascinating for this type of film, we never get to find out who actually committed the crime – the moral seeming to be: it wouldn’t matter anyway. It’s not the crime itself that matters in this world, but what is seen to be done about it.

Overall, there is plenty to admire about I Just Didn’t Do It, but its flaws prevent it from being the hard hitting and, more importantly, relevant drama it should have been. Having said that, you’ll be amazed at just how gripping the court room drama can be considering the subject is so unfamiliar to most Westerners.