Of Love and Law

An open­ing inter-title to Hikaru Toda’s scrap­py, charm­ing doc­u­men­tary Of Love and Law sug­gests that cul­tur­al homo­gene­ity in Japan has exert­ed a neg­a­tive pres­sure on its archa­ic legal system.

An ingrained atti­tude of strin­gent order and an insid­i­ous fear of the out­sider has often meant that those who live beyond the bub­ble – whether through choice or oth­er­wise – are on the back foot when it comes hav­ing a har­mo­nious rela­tion­ship with soci­ety at large.

And what bet­ter guides into this maze of unen­light­ened think­ing and inequal­i­ty than Fumi and Kazu, a mar­ried gay cou­ple who are both lawyers and seem to ded­i­cate their wak­ing hours to wip­ing out the malev­o­lent con­cept of ​‘oth­er­ness’ in the coun­try they love.

What makes Toda’s film so agree­able is its decep­tive­ly light treat­ment of what is, in essence, very weighty sub­ject mat­ter. In between cas­es, we’re allowed a win­dow on Fumi and Kazu’s con­ju­gal bliss, as they talk about the best broths to make soup and write sen­ti­men­tal show­tunes for one another.

Their mutu­al love is pal­pa­ble as they tri­umphant­ly march in Osaka’s strange­ly minia­ture Pride march while prepar­ing their apart­ment for a poten­tial fos­ter child (even though they are not legal­ly allowed to fos­ter). Yet when court is in order, a mask of seri­ous­ness drops down and they fight obscure cas­es for clients at risk of falling between the country’s size­able social cracks.

Most enter­tain­ing of their clients is the bub­bly con­cep­tu­al artist Roku­de­nashiko who is in the dock for obscen­i­ty. Fumi and Kazu can’t help but gig­gle at the absur­di­ty of a tri­al in which a per­son who has fash­ioned a kayak based on a mould of her vagi­na is being charged as a men­ace, and they’re dri­ven to some bizarre ends to make their case that the so-called obscene nature of this art is entire­ly the result of the male gaze.

Con­ser­v­a­tive judges are par­tic­u­lar­ly offend­ed by a plas­ter caste of her vagi­na which has been refash­ioned into a cri­tique of the Fukushi­ma Dai­ichi nuclear dis­as­ter, replete with gush­ing coolant. Yet some of their cas­es are more sober, and the fun-lov­ing guys treat them as such. One dra­con­ian law they’re try­ing to over­turn states that if a child is born out of wed­lock, then par­ties are denied any offi­cial legal sta­tus, leav­ing them unable to access health­care, edu­ca­tion, or any state aid.

Toda’s film comes across as a no frills fly-on-the-wall char­ac­ter piece – there’s no real over­ar­ch­ing struc­ture, we’re just fol­low­ing these two pathfind­ing lawyers over a ran­dom stretch of time. It’s the strength of the sub­jects and the director’s will­ing­ness to gen­tly poke fun at – rather than out­right mock – the bizarre sit­u­a­tions that gives this small film its rain­bow-striped wings.