In recent Japanese cinema a movement can be discerned among young film-makers to tackle socially-sensitive subjects and taboos in the form of personal and intimately-told stories. Swimming with Tears is a fine example. Donald Richie even used the term ‘dissident cinema’, especially with reference to this film. The taboo broached here is that of racism in Japan, suffered by immigrants from other Asian countries.Protagonist in Swimming with Tears is Fay, a Filipino woman. Richie: ‘When she lets loose what she thinks of industrial Japan, the screen truly vibrates’. The story is sad, as indicated by the literal translation of the title: ‘flood of hot tears’.As a result of a business transaction, Fay is married to a Japanese farmer. The shortage of suitable candidates for marriage means that women are more or less bought from, for instance, the Philippines. Fay, it turns out, is not up to the frigid marriage and the problems of language and culture; when it gets too much for her, she flees. She arrives in Tokyo with only the clothes she stands up in. She tries to find a job to earn the money she need to pay for the journey bay to the Philippines. But here she experiences the discrimination of Asian immigrants even more than in the countryside. She is exploited and humiliated. But she also makes Japanese friends who get into trouble themselves for helping her. For instance when it turns out that Fay’s father, whom she has never met,is a Japanese businessman who worked in the Philippines for some time.
