Film Review: Behind Forgotten Eyes (2006) Documentary
This paper analyzes a film review by Nix of the 2006 documentary Behind Forgotten Eyes, which examines the experiences of Korean comfort women — women forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese military during World War II. The paper evaluates the reviewer's emotional and empathetic approach, his treatment of historical accuracy, and his criticism of the director's use of manipulative cinematic devices. It also explores the reviewer's sympathetic framing of the comfort women as victims, his comparisons to other historical atrocities, and the limitations of his perspective regarding the soldiers who utilized the comfort stations.
- Introduction to the Documentary and Reviewer's Approach: Overview of documentary subject and reviewer's method
- Emotional and Historical Framing: Reviewer's empathetic tone and historical comparisons
- The Three-Act Structure and Survivor Testimonies: Analysis of three-part documentary and survivor accounts
- Critique of the Director's Cinematic Choices: Reviewer's objections to music and artifice in film
- Bias and Missed Perspectives in the Review: Reviewer's overlooked soldier perspective and bias
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper moves beyond simple summary by critically evaluating the reviewer's perspective, identifying both strengths and limitations in how Nix approaches the documentary.
- It uses specific examples — such as the reviewer's comparison to the Massacre of Nanking and Pol Pot's killing fields — to ground its analysis in concrete evidence from the review.
- The paper thoughtfully interrogates language, noting how euphemisms like "comfort women" soften the reality of sexual slavery, and uses this as a lens to critique the reviewer's depth of engagement.
Key academic technique demonstrated
This paper demonstrates critical meta-analysis — evaluating not just the documentary itself but the reviewer's methodology, biases, and blind spots. Rather than simply agreeing or disagreeing with the reviewer, the author probes the assumptions embedded in Nix's language and framing choices, a technique that adds analytical depth to what might otherwise be a straightforward review summary.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens by introducing the documentary's subject and the reviewer's background, then proceeds through a roughly parallel analysis of the review's major elements: emotional framing, treatment of survivor testimonies, critique of cinematic technique, and the reviewer's own biases. The conclusion identifies a missed opportunity — the possibility that some soldiers were unaware of how comfort women were recruited — suggesting a more nuanced review would have strengthened rather than undermined the documentary's moral force.
Introduction to the Documentary and Reviewer's Approach
The reviewer Nix chose to review the film Behind Forgotten Eyes (2006), a documentary that addresses the comfort women — a term used to describe the Korean women who were forced to act as prostitutes for Japanese soldiers during World War II. The reviewer evidently had some knowledge of the history of comfort women and used that historical background as a basis for judging the film. However, he did not seem to strictly evaluate the film's historical accuracy. Whether this was because he found the film to be historically accurate, or whether he was simply impressed by its emotional impact, is something that was not made clear in the review.
Emotional and Historical Framing
The reviewer took a very emotional and empathetic approach to the film review. He was clearly impressed by the story the documentary told, and asked others to consider whether they would be able to find the same strength or resilience as the women portrayed in the film if they ever faced similar circumstances. While the reviewer found that the film portrayed a cruelty one would have hoped was extinguished by the twentieth century, he compared what happened to the comfort women to other widely known atrocities, such as the Massacre of Nanking, the concentration camps, and Pol Pot's killing fields. The reviewer made it clear that he agreed with the documentary director's interpretation of the comfort women's ordeal — that these women were forced into sexual slavery and did not willingly act as prostitutes.
The Three-Act Structure and Survivor Testimonies
Because the reviewer felt that the film was divided into three acts, he addressed each part of the documentary separately. The first part focuses on comfort women and the soldiers who utilized them, each giving personal accounts of the comfort women experience. The reviewer was obviously sympathetic to the plight of the comfort women, casting them as victims and the soldiers as victimizers — which is how almost all historians view the scenario. The reviewer also made clear that this film would provide insight even for people already familiar with the comfort women story.
Three survivors speak about what they endured as comfort women and how those experiences have continued to affect their lives to this day. The reviewer describes the women's accounts using graphic detail, which is an interesting and somewhat anomalous phrase. After all, would one not expect descriptions of rape to be graphic and disturbing? The euphemistic language employed to justify human rights violations like this one — calling the women "comfort women" rather than "sex slaves" — softens the impact of what was done, even years after the fact. Therefore, while it is clear that the reviewer had previously studied these events, it is equally clear that he did not fully consider the lasting impact that being forced into prostitution for an enemy army would have on a person.
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