By LiAnn Ishizuka

Independent Lens's Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story looks at the human toll of political entanglement.

The last film in PBS's 2007-2008 Independent Lens series is a documentary with no happy ending. There is a Japanese saying -- "spirited away" -- used to describe cases of inexplicable disappearances. For over thirty years, the mysterious disappearance of a 13 year-old Japanese teen is still unsettled, and according to this 2006 award-winning documentary, the unresolved mystery has everything to do with the unstable relations between North Korea and Japan. Even today, both countries have yet to achieve normalization agreements.

Megumi Yokota is among an estimated hundred other Japanese citizens caught in this international deadlock. In 2002, North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il publically admitted what the Yokota family and Japan feared could be true: that NK agents had abducted 13 Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s, one of which was the 13 year-old Megumi Yokota in 1977. Even after in-depth undercover investigations, and pleas from Yokota's parents to the media, nothing had surfaced. It took nearly twenty years for any leads to reveal the possibility of North Korea involvement.

In Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story, directed by husband-and-wife team Chris Sheridan and Patty Kim, we follow many characters: Yokota's fearless parents on their journey for justice, a Sankei Japanese reporter reminiscing about his suspicions, a former NK agent, testimonies from other parents and relatives of NK abducted children, one of whom decided to run for a seat in parliament in hopes of forcing the Japanese government to pay attention to the abduction issue. We learn lies from NK reports, sympathize with a number of afflicted families, and discover that the reasons behind these disappearances may be related to the training of NK spies in Japanese language and culture.

The most surprising thing about Abduction is its provocatively activist tone. The film not only makes you cry, but makes you feel the indignation. Watching these elderly parents, all of whom are at least in their seventies, makes one invert the typical picture of young fiery kids shouting with fists in the air. Instead, activism, as seen through the camera lens, follows the Yokota family in the height of daily press conferences, meetings with Japanese and foreign diplomats, and grassroots flyering and picketing at busy locales in Tokyo -- all efforts toward awareness and justice.

However, there's also a tender -- though no less impassioned -- side to the story. Through nostalgic photographs of Yokota as a child and through interviews with family and friends, Abduction provides sentimental glimpses of the life that used to be. In one of the most tearful scenes of the entire film, an interview with Yokota's former choir teacher describes Yokota's vocal solo in one of her very last performances. "Megumi's voice was perfect for it," recalls Yokota's choir teacher, Saito, as she forces back tears.

The film then turns to Yokota's mother holding a tape recorder in her hands, and voices from a scratchy audio recording are heard. Then the multitude of voices dies and one is heard: Yokota's solo. Yokota's mother listens while keeping her head down and silently lip-syncing the lyrics from memory:

"Those once expelled from a homeland
Where they were happy
See the beloved land in their dreams"

Abduction is also effective at humanizing who Megumi Yokota actually was. Yokota was an older sister to twin brothers. She played badminton. Yokota's parents, we learn, are a banker and housewife living in the coastal city of Niigata before moving to Kawasaki. And before moving, they made sure to post their new address on the front of their old home, in case their daughter returned.

But perhaps the one crucial feature that made Megumi Yokota different from the other abductees is that she was only thirteen when she was abducted; the twelve others were already adults. At one point in the investigation, NK agents turn over photographs of an adult Megumi Yokota. These images, along with those of the other thirteen who went missing, are eerie reminders of lives that no longer are. However, for Yokota's parents it is evident in their eyes that they've never given up on finding their daughter. At one point Yokota's father pulls out a comb from his chest pocket, saying that the day before his daughter was abducted, she gave him that comb as his birthday present. Yokota's father carries the comb with him wherever he goes.  

Award-winning National Geographic filmmakers Sheridan and Kim are sensitive to exposing the controversy of these mysterious kidnappings. In fact, the film successfully highlights a lot of what makes the NK abductions such a paradox. North Korea initially claims in 1993 that Yokota committed suicide, but later retracted that statement after someone spotted her in 1994. An urn is given to Yokota's parents, but DNA evidence proves it does not belong to Yokota. Five of the thirteen Japanese abductees are given permission to return to Japan, but when asked about their experience in North Korea they are silenced by fear. It's easy to get lost in the tangle of contradictions of what the North Korean government claimed versus what was actually true. Sheridan and Kim do not narrate the documentary. They let the testimonies -- paradoxes and all -- tell the story.

But politics can never be avoided. As the press got wind of Yokota's disappearance and reports of other missing people in the 1990s, it seemed that finally the government would act. In one particular scene, Yokota's parents and a crowd of other parents with abducted children protest outside of Japan's ruling party LPD Headquarters, demanding that Japan stop giving rice to North Korea and start helping to return their loved ones. But even amidst trying to convince Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to do something, aid kept pouring into North Korea. "Nuclear weapons and missiles" are also important diplomatic issues, counters Koizumi.

The film ends on a rather uneasy note. The truth of Yokota is still a mystery. Eight of the thirteen that were abducted are said to be dead. And only the words of Yokota's mother linger, with the hope that when her daughter returns, she can finally "feel free."


Postscript: The saga takes a potential turn. On June 13th, BBC Online reported that North Korea is set to re-examine the Japanese abduction cases, in exchange for Japan's ban on North Korean charter flights. Freedom may be in sight, but the mysteries remain. 



Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story premieres on PBS' Independent Lens on June 19th. For local showtimes, and for more information on the production, check out the Independent Lens site here.

 

Published: Friday, June 13, 2008