Saturday, June 23, 2018 • WEST COAST PREMIERE
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| Of Love & Law (愛と法) |
Fumi [んと吉田昌史（フミ）] and Kazu [る南 和行（カズ）] (pictured) are an openly gay couple of lawyers in Osaka, Japan. Their Namori Law Firm (なんもり法律事務所) takes not only LGBTQ cases, but also the cases of other marginalized people. In Japan, 98.5% of the population is ethnically Japanese, leaving little room for anyone outside the mainstream. Fumi and Kazu have among their clients a woman who officially does not exist, simply because her father and mother were not married to each other when she was born. (An estimated 10,000 people are in similar circumstances, unable to get a birth certificate, a passport, or even a drivers license, and thus blocked from many government services and educational opportunities.) Another client is a feminist artist charged with obscenity for her artworks depicting vaginas in a playful way. Yet another is a teacher who was fired for refusing to stand during the Japanese national anthem. They also fight for marriage equality and the right of a gay couple to be adoptive or foster parents. By chance, Fumi is named as the legal guardian to his orphaned client Kazuma, reinforcing the couple’s determination to bring children into their (still legally unrecognized) family.
The documentary is powerful from beginning to end, leavened with humor even amidst legal setbacks. Fumi and Kazu, through a combination of perseverance, charisma, and thorough knowledge of the law, press their cases, seeking to bring Japan into line with its constitution, which provides every individual the right to the pursuit of happiness. (Side note: in the United States, that phrase appears in the Declaration of Independence, but it has no legal force, because it appears in neither the Constitution nor in federal law.) In that respect, Japan is ahead of the United States, but in many, many ways it falls short of that ideal, and in recent years it has been moving in the wrong direction. The world — and, incidentally, the United States of Trump — desperately need more lawyers like these two, fighting for basic human rights. Their story gives me hope in a world under siege by conformist autocrats. Without a doubt, a MUST SEE.
The documentary is powerful from beginning to end, leavened with humor even amidst legal setbacks. Fumi and Kazu, through a combination of perseverance, charisma, and thorough knowledge of the law, press their cases, seeking to bring Japan into line with its constitution, which provides every individual the right to the pursuit of happiness. (Side note: in the United States, that phrase appears in the Declaration of Independence, but it has no legal force, because it appears in neither the Constitution nor in federal law.) In that respect, Japan is ahead of the United States, but in many, many ways it falls short of that ideal, and in recent years it has been moving in the wrong direction. The world — and, incidentally, the United States of Trump — desperately need more lawyers like these two, fighting for basic human rights. Their story gives me hope in a world under siege by conformist autocrats. Without a doubt, a MUST SEE.
• IMDb • official website (Hakawati) • Facebook: @OfLoveAndLaw •
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