'The Tokyo Trial': Reflections on Visuality, Transnational Dialogue and Monumentality
Published 2026-07-31
Keywords
- Autoethnography,
- Cultural Translation,
- Emotional Community,
- Post-war Responsibility,
- Monumentality
How to Cite
Copyright (c) 2026 L'Atalante. Journal of film studies
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Abstract
Taking the film The Tokyo Trial (2006) as a case study, this article explores the dilemmas faced by post-colonial subjects in the narration of historical trauma, as well as their efforts to transcend the structural trauma of visual history and establish new power dynamics related to the gaze. Drawing on Rey Chow’s theory of cinema as a discourse of cultural translation (1995), it discusses whether transnational dialogues initiated by non-Western cultures are ultimately confined to showcasing their “to-be-looked-at-ness”. At the same time, using cultural representations based on historical events such as the Tokyo and Nuremberg Trials as examples, it examines the responsibility of the post-war generation as an audience.
Downloads
References
- Ahmad, A. (1992). In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures. London: Verso.
- Arendt, H. (2006). Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. London: Penguin Books.
- Assmann, J. (2012). Cultural Memory and Early Civilization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Azoulay, A. (2008). The Civil Contract of Photography. Princeton, NJ: Zone Books.
- Benedict, R. (2005). The Chrysanthemum and the Sword. Boston: Mariner Books.
- Buruma, I. (1994). The Wages of Guilt. New York: New York Review of Books.
- Butler, J. (2006). Vida precaria: El poder del duelo y la violencia (F. Rodríguez, Trans.). Barcelona: Paidós.
- Chow, R. (1995). Primitive Passions: Visuality, Sexuality, and Contemporary Chinese Cinema. New York: Columbia University Press.
- Denton, K. (2014). Exhibiting the Past: Historical Memory and the Politics of Museums in Post-socialist China. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.
- Derrida, J. (2000). Dar la muerte (P. Vidarte, Trans.). Barcelona: Paidós.
- Foucault, M. (2002). Vigilar y castigar (A. Gázon, Trans.). Mexico City: Siglo XXI Editores.
- Hirsch, M. (2012). The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture after the Holocaust. New York: Columbia University Press.
- Li, X. (2000). The Incoherent Nation: An Exploration of Chinese Postnationalism. In T. Brooks & A. Schmid (Eds.), Nation Work: Asian Elites and National Identities (pp. 191-218). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
- Maruyama, M. (1963). Thought and Behaviour in Modern Japanese Politics (I. Morris, Ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Maruyama, M. (1995). 丸山眞男集. Tokyo: 岩波書店.
- Mei, R. (2016). 东京审判亲历记. Shanghai: 上海交通大学出版社.
- Nora, P. (2008). Los lugares de la memoria (L. Masello, Trans.). Montevideo: Ediciones Trilce.
- Ōnuma, Y. (2009). 东京审判 战争责任 战后责任 (Z. Song, Trans.). Beijing: 社会科学文献出版社.
- Pratt, M. L. (1992). Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. London: Routledge.
- Rancière, J. (2005). Sobre políticas estéticas (M. Arranz, Trans.). Barcelona: Servei de Publicacions de la Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona.
- Rothberg, M. (2009). Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
- Sedgwick, E. (2003). Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
- Takahashi, T. (2008). 战后责任论 (M. Xu, Trans.). Beijing: 社会科学文献出版社.
- Takeuchi, Y. (1983). 近代の超克. Tokyo: 筑摩叢書.
- Wang, Z. (2012). Never Forget National Humiliation: Historical Memory in Chinese Politics and Foreign Relations. New York: Columbia University Press.
- Yomota, I. (2022). 大岛渚与日本 (F. Zhi, Trans.). Beijing: 北京大学出版社.