by ASATO IKEDA
[Ed. Note: This article is part of an ongoing series and online exclusive exploring contemporary artists through interviews, commentary, and visual engagements provided by art historian Asato Ikeda. For other interviews in this series, see “Art and Politics with Asato Ikeda.“]
Abstract: In this conversation with Asato Ikeda, Atsushi Funahashi discusses his 2022 film Company Retreat, which is fiction based on a true story.1 The film tells the story of a female employee Saki who works at a hotel and was sexually harassed by her boss. The story unfolds in Kamakura, where she and her co-workers have an emotional company retreat where their differing opinions about the sexual harassment incident collide. The film centers on the secondary trauma and harassment that survivors often encounter in Japan and elsewhere.
Atsushi Funahashi (b. 1974) is a Japanese film director. Originally from Osaka, he graduated from the University of Tokyo with a B.A. in cinema studies and studied film directing at the School of Visual Arts in New York. His representative works include Big River (2005), Nuclear Nation (2012), and Company Retreat (2022), and his films have been screened at major international film festivals, including Berlin, Annonay in France, Pusan, Shanghai, Sao Paolo, and Tokyo.
Ikeda: Thank you for making the time for this today. I re-watched Company Retreat for this interview a few days ago, and I’m still struck by how uncomfortable the film made me. As somebody who grew up in Japan, I remember how human relationships there can be convoluted in a particular way. There are certain very abstract phrases that are often used in Japan, such as “you are relying too much on other people” (amaeteiru), “you must work hard” (ganbatte), “we are a team” (nakama dakara),” or “don’t run away” (nigenaide). I am working on collaborative research on NHK data regarding sexual violence and consent with other researchers, but the survivors’ voices there are isolated from the cultural context.2I thought your film did a great job presenting that context—the dark aspects of Japanese culture—though I am having a hard time articulating exactly what they are. Perhaps narrow-mindedness and herd/village mentality? I know you talked about the goal of your filmmaking as capturing the “unconsciousness of the times” (jidai no muishiki), which might be relevant here. Would you like to elaborate on this?
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