The Invisible Mentor

Is your team suffering from group think – each member having the same ideas? Are you prepared to stand up fro what you believe it? Do you “cave in” and compromise your values under pressure? These are the thoughts I was having while watching I Just Didn’t Do It, a Japanese courtroom drama. The acting was brilliant and the film was very good but I was distressed at the end, mainly because I know what happened in the film actually happens in real life.

The film is about a chronic problem of sexual harassment on the trains, but the language they use in I Just Didn’t Do It is groping, indecent exposure and so on. The film starts on a crowded train where a businessman is massaging a women’s bum, then he becomes bolder and places his hand under her skirt. She screams out and calls him a pervert and everyone starts looking at him so he lashes out at her and tells her that he would bother with someone like her.

Because of the chronic situation there has been public outcry so the judicial system wants to make an example of the offenders. The businessman is taken in to custody and the detectives are trying to get a confession, but he is being very arrogant until they announce that they are going to check his hands to see if there are fibres that match the fibres of the victim’s underwear. He folds and starts to cry, apologizes and says that if what he did became public it would ruin him. Because he is penitent he gets a slap on the wrist and is let go.

The main story line of the film begins, and once again it’s a crowded train with someone groping a fifteen year old school girl. Immediately behind her is a 26 year old man, who is squirming around because his jacket is caught in the train door. He is very flustered and working desperately to dislodge his jacket. He bumps into the woman beside him, she gives him a look and he apologizes. It takes him about 10 minutes to free his jacket, and during that time because of his flustered state he is unaware of what is playing out in front of him. The only thing he is concerned with is getting his jacket free.

Someone wearing a dark coloured jacket similar to his is the one who is groping the girl. She grabs the person’s hand to see who the offender is, but he quickly yanks his hand free. So when the train stops and she gets off, she assumes that the guy behind her was the offender and he gets arrested. When the metro works accost him, the lady who he bumped into tries to explain that the guy wasn’t a groper, all he was trying to do was pull out his jacket which was caught in the door. They had no interest in her so she left.

I Just Didn’t Do It brilliantly unfolds with the hearing inside the courtroom. The guy maintains that he innocent, but no one wants to listen. They want a confession and the detectives twist what he said, and they embellished in their statement. They didn’t tell him that he gets one call or that he was entitled to get a lawyer. He was violated. Another inmate tells him about his rights and he got a public defender who encourages him to confess because 99.99 percent of those cases that go to trial the defendant is convicted. The guy stands up for what he believes in and refuses to confess to a crime he didn’t commit, and he believed in the justice system.

As the story unfolds you see one obstacle after another, and all the time he maintains his innocence. The detectives convince the victim that it had to be defendant who groped her because it could not have been anyone else. The defendant’s lawyers re-enacted the scene on the crowded train and showed that there was no way it could have been the defendant. And also in the middle of the case they pulled the first judge because they felt that too many of the cases he ruled on were acquittals.

There was one miscarriage of justice after another and he was convicted and the film ends when they have the ruling, and the defendant is told that he can appeal in 14 days and he appeals. It’s a beautiful film that’s worth seeing, and you get caught up in the drama and events as they unfold.

Sexual harassment is wrong, but people need to defend themselves against claims. The situation was guilty until proven innocent. His lawyers, mother and friends believed in him and did everything in their power to prove his innocence. And they did, as a member of the audience you see what the judge and district attorney refuse to see, and that’s the brilliance of the film.

I know it was a film but I was very distressed at the end. And the brilliant acting and the unfolding of the story made it very real, which did not help my situation. It also reminded me of Sean MacDonald, the wrongful dismissal lawyer who we have featured here. If you get the opportunity to see I Just Didn’t Do It, please do so.

For readers who live in Toronto and surrounding areas, The Japanese Foundation has film screenings at the Bloor Street Cinema from December 9 to 12, 2010 and you can see the films for free.

So back to my original questions, is your team suffering from group think – each member having the same ideas? Are you prepared to stand up fro what you believe it? Do you “cave in” and compromise your values under pressure?

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Related posts:

1. Review of the Documentary Mr. Mergler’s Gift

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