Dear Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, Minister of Justice Hideo Hiraoka, Minister for Foreign Affairs Koichiro Gemba, Minister of Health, Labor, and Welfare Yoko Komiyama, and the government of Japan,

I pose the question: How many children in Japan cannot be with both of their parents on the Children’s Day national holiday?

In other words, how many children have lost a meaningful relationship with one of their parents?

Apparently, there may be 2.2 million children or more from 1992 to 2009, including 4,200 American dual-nationals. This has occurred as the result of divorce as well as child abduction, both international and domestic.

The estimate is based on statistics from the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare (MHLW) and Supreme Court of Japan. Each instance is a human rights violation, the loss of a child’s access to both parents at all times.

Many in Japan and around the world do not know this human rights problem is happening because it is masked by terminology. The issue is often described as a custody dispute in Japan — a civil matter — when in fact the world outside would refer to it as a child abduction. The scenario is institutionalized and sanctioned by every family court divorce ruling.

First, one must understand the conditions. If a parent takes a child from the other parent, this custodial interference is not illegal in Japan, so abductions are not counted. Therefore, it is difficult to know how many there have been.

We also know that after divorce only one parent retains custody, and there is no enforceable visitation. Hence, denial of access after divorce is not counted either, and can be done with impunity.

How many children in Japan are affected by this? Let’s look at MHLW divorce statistics and Supreme Court of Japan visitation rulings.

From 1992 to 2009 there were 4,358,276 divorces in Japan. There were 230,672 divorces involving one spouse who is not Japanese, and 7,449 divorces where one spouse is American. There are about 250,000 divorces per year in Japan. There is one child per divorce on average consistently throughout the time frame in question.

Half of the children of divorce in Supreme Court of Japan visitation appeal cases from 1999 to 2009 have ended up through the court process with less than 12 visits per year with their noncustodial parent. Typical visitation rulings grant children between 12 and 52 hours per year with their noncustodial parent after divorce, but in half of the cases visitation is less than the low end of that range.

These rulings show how much visitation the highest court in Japan thinks children should have. Maintaining a meaningful parent-child relationship with that much visitation is simply not feasible.

A pie chart that appeared on NHK’s « Close Up Gendai » show on Sept. 8, 2010, shows a survey in which 58 percent of respondents stated that they do not have visitation with their children after divorce in Japan. With a divorce rate at about one-third the rate of marriages and one child per marriage and divorce, multiplying the divorce rate by the percentage visitation rate indicated in the NHK survey means that about one-fifth of children in Japan do not have a relationship with both parents. The family is the fundamental unit of a society, but it is not being protected, with dire consequences.

If we multiply the number of children by 50 percent — those who have less than once a month visitation according to Supreme Court data — then we can estimate those who do not have regular visitation with their parent. From 1992 to 2009, this has affected an estimated 2.2 million children in Japan, including 115,000 children of dual nationality, and 3,825 children with one American parent.

The U.S. State Department also reports that 374 American children have been abducted from the U.S. to Japan since 1994. This makes an estimated 4,200 American children (3,825 + 374) who have lost the relationship with their American parent.

What is the meaning of Children’s Day, where families are given a holiday to celebrate their children, while the joy for many is taken away by a judicial system that has deprived 2.2 million families of a reason to rejoice?

The breeze that suspends carp streamers (koinobori) across the country on that day is a hollow promise of parenthood and the howl of a desolate childhood for those who long to be cherished by their kin.

A CONCERNED, LOVING PARENT

Table ronde du réseau Oyakonet du 13 juillet 2008 (en japonais) 06 from France-Japon.net on Vimeo.

Table ronde du réseau Oyakonet du 13 juillet 2008 (en japonais) 07 from France-Japon.net on Vimeo.

Table ronde du réseau Oyakonet du 13 juillet 2008 (en japonais) 03 from France-Japon.net on Vimeo.

Table ronde du réseau Oyakonet du 13 juillet 2008 (en japonais) 04 from France-Japon.net on Vimeo.

Shane Clarke had no reason to be suspicious when his wife took their two children to Japan to see their ill grandmother in January.

The couple had married four years earlier after meeting online, and settled down with their daughters, aged three and one, in the west Midlands. Clarke, they agreed, would join his family in Japan in May for a holiday, and they would all return together.

Last week, however, he faced his wife and her lawyer in a Japanese courtroom, uncertain if he would ever see his children again. When his wife left the UK, Clarke now believes, she never had any intention of returning with him, or of letting her children see him.

« From the moment I met her at Narita airport I knew something was wrong, » Clarke told the Guardian before a custody hearing in Mito, north of Tokyo. « I soon realised she’d played me like a grand piano. The whole thing had been orchestrated, » he claims.

Clarke, a 38-year-old management consultant from West Bromwich, has gone to great lengths to win custody. The Crown Prosecution Service said his wife could be prosecuted in the UK under the 1984 child abduction act.

However, he can expect little sympathy from Japanese courts, which do not recognise parental child abduction as a crime and habitually rule in favour of the custodial – Japanese – parent.

Japan is the only G7 nation not to have signed the 1980 Hague convention on civil aspects of child abduction, which requires parents accused of abducting their children to return them to their country of habitual residence. He is one of an estimated 10,000 parents, divorced or separated from their Japanese spouses, who have been denied access to their children. Since the Hague treaty came into effect, not a single ruling in Japan has gone in favour of the foreign parent.

Campaigners say Japan’s refusal to join the treaty’s 80 other signatories has turned it into a haven for child abductors.

The European Union, Canada and the US have urged Japan to sign, but Takao Tanase, a law professor at Chuo University, says international pressure is unlikely to have much impact. « In Japan, if the child is secure in its new environment and doesn’t want more disruption, family courts don’t believe that it is in the child’s best interest to force it to see the non-custodial parent, » he said.

Japanese courts prefer to leave it to divorced couples to negotiate custody arrangements, Takase said. Officials say the government is looking at signing the Hague treaty, though not soon.

« We recognise that the convention is a useful tool to secure children’s rights and we are seriously considering the possibility of signing the convention, but we’ve yet to reach a conclusion, » said Yasuhisa Kawamura, a foreign ministry spokesman.

« We understand the anxieties of international parents, but there is no difference between the western approach and ours. »

Clarke’s two custody hearings this week did not go well. An interpreter arranged by the foreign office failed to materialise. The British embassy in Tokyo provided him with a list of alternative interpreters but said it could offer no more help.

The judge was forced to postpone his ruling, but Clarke is convinced he will never see his daughters again.

« We are talking about two British citizens, and no one will help me. The message our government is sending out to foreign nationals is that it’s perfectly all right for them to commit a crime on British soil, and as long as they leave the country quickly enough, they’ll get away scot-free. »
Backstory

The rise in the number of parental child abductions has been fuelled by a dramatic increase in marriages between Japanese and foreign nationals. According to the health and welfare ministry, there were 44,701 such marriages in 2006, compared with 7,261 in 1980, the vast majority between Japanese and Chinese, Koreans and Filipinos. An estimated 20,000 children are born to Japanese-foreign couples every year. Though Japan does not keep an official count, there are 47 unresolved cases of US children being taken to Japan – only Mexico and India are more popular destinations – and 30 involving Canadian citizens. British officials are dealing with 10 cases, a foreign office spokeswoman told the Guardian, including that of Shane Clarke.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/15/japan.childprotection

ずっと大切な「お父さん」

一時帰国していたフランスから日本の家に帰ると、愛する妻と娘の姿がない。置き手紙には「連絡は弁護士へ」。友人のジャック・コローさんの苦難はこんな場面から始まりました。
パリでは夫婦の２組に１組は離婚する、なんて言われていますが、子育てを望む男性の増加もあって、離婚した家庭では、平日と週末に分けてそれぞれの親と暮らす子どもが増えています。フランスは「共同親権制」。子どもには、父親、母親どちらとも交流する権利が保証されているのです。
日本でも離婚が増えていますが、子どもに会わせてもらえない親も増えています。それは、日本は「単独親権制」だから。親権のない親（たいてい父親）は、「会わせたくない」という親権者の意向で、親子の関係を絶たれてしまうのです。コローさんは子どもに会うための戦いをもう４年も続けています。離婚が成立した際に家裁で取り決めた、週に１度の面会の約束は１回も果たされていないのです。誕生日のプレゼントすら渡せないなんて！
コローさんのように日本人との国際結婚の場合、ハーフの娘はもうひとつの祖国フランスと触れ合うチャンスを奪われてしまいます。これは、彼女にとってアイデンティティーを確立していくうえで重要な問題です。
夫婦の関係が破綻（はたん）しても、親子の関係まで引き裂かれることはないはず。共同親権を法制化し、離れた親に会う権利を守るべきではないでしょうか。日本でも子育てに熱心な男性がずいぶん増えていますよね。私にとって父の存在はとても大きいし、今もふたりで旅行するほど仲良し。お父さんの役割は子どもにとって大切なんです！

Dora Tauzin（ドラ・トーザン）　／　フランス人国際ジャーナリスト

【２００８年２月２１日、朝日新聞マリオン】

With regard to Japan, according to European sources, the French presidency has announced the consular issue of Japan’s failure to respect parental visitation rights with their children as one of the four top priorities.

France must deal, together with other European countries, the US and Canada, with the problem of visitation rights with the children of divorced bi-national couples residing in Japan.

Around 20 French citizens are denied this right. Even when a judge decides provides visitation rights, the police do not enforce these judicial decisions. Often rather than uphold the judicial decisions, Japanes law enforcement will violate the judicial decision and often arrest the parent endeavoring to have his visitation right respected, inappropriately making false accusations that the foreign parent is being a stalker, or that he/she is menacing the public order.

According to European sources, given the absence of commitment from the Japanese administration, the French President of the European Union has invited the 27 members of the European Union to exert pressure on the Japanese government as this problem can potentially harm the image of Japan in the international community.

French

Enfants binationaux et respect du droit de visite après un jugement au Japon : une priorité de la Présidence française pour les six prochains mois

Le 2 juillet 2008, la France a présenté ses priorités pour les six prochains mois de la présidence française de l’Union Européenne aux Ambassadeurs et Chefs de mission des 27 pays membres.

De source européenne, en ce qui concerne le Japon, la Présidence française a placé les affaires consulaires en matière de non-présentation d’enfant parmi ses quatre priorités,

La France doit faire face, comme tous les autres pays de l’Union européenne, les Etats-Unis et le Canada, au problème du respect du droit de visite après un jugement de divorce dans le cas d’enfants de couples binationaux en résidence au Japon.

Plus d’une vingtaine de ressortissants français voient actuellement leur droit de visite bafoué malgré un jugement rendu au Japon. Quand bien même ce droit de visite a été légiféré par le juge des affaires familiales, il n’est pas appliqué et la police n’est d’aucun recours, si ce n’est au contraire pour interpeller le parent qui insiste pour le respect de ses droits au titre qu’il trouble l’ordre public.

En l’absence d’un quelconque engagement de l’administration japonaise à résoudre ces problèmes, la Présidence française a invité, selon nos sources européennes, les 27 pays membres de l’Union Européenne à exercer toute pression utile pour convaincre le gouvernement japonais que ce problème peut nuire à l’image du Japon sur la scène internationale.

Source : http://afe-asie-nord.org/?p=294

Manifestation Oyakonet 13 juillet 2008 from Christian Bouthier on Vimeo.

Les photos de la conférence de presse du 15 juillet 2008 sont en ligne ici :

http://france-japon.net/albumphotos/v/kishaclub01/

If my own mailbox is any indicator, the Internet is buzzing as international family lawyers, family rights activists and others share an exciting piece of news: Japan is reportedly planning to join the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction! Perhaps Japan’s days as a haven for international parental child abduction are numbered. Perhaps Japanese courts will stop giving the judicial seal of approval to one parent’s selfish desire to erase the other from a child’s life. Fingers crossed.

Though one could question the timing of the very low-key announcement two months before the Hokkaido G8 Summit the Japanese authorities should be commended for taking what will be a big step forward in the sphere of private international law. The concerted pressure of diplomats from a number of countries (including several G8 nations) who have pushed Japan on this issue for years, and the efforts of activists often parents who have lost any hope of being part of their own children’s lives but have continued to speak up for the benefit of others must also be acknowledged and
appreciated.

I must confess to having been skeptical that this would happen so soon (it could happen as early as 2010) if at all. I will be glad ecstatic to be proved wrong. However, I do not plan to crack open any champagne until an abducted child is actually returned home. International treaties, like marriages and childbirth, are events to be celebrated, but all of the hard work comes afterward.

By entering into the convention, Japan will be agreeing with other signatory countries that children wrongfully brought to Japan even by a parent will be promptly returned. One key aspect of the convention is that it limits the role of judges in these decisions. Rather than deciding whether remaining in Japan is in a child’s best interests (which has almost always been the conclusion of Japanese judges in abduction cases), in cases under the convention judges are limited to deciding whether a child has been brought from his or her home country « wrongfully » (in violation of foreign law or court orders, without the consent of the other parent, etc.). If the removal is found to be wrongful, absent exceptional circumstances the judge is supposed to order the child’s return. All this is supposed to happen on an expedited basis in order to prevent a new status quo from developing in the child’s living environment.

Two other aspects of the convention are noteworthy. First, signatory countries are obliged to help locate abducted children. This would be a great improvement over the current situation in Japan, where parents who are able to commence what is likely to be hopelessly futile litigation in Japan’s family courts are actually the lucky ones, since this means they at least know where their children are. Less lucky parents have to try and find their children somewhere in the country, often disadvantaged by barriers of language and culture. The act of trying to find or communicate with your own child may even be deemed a form of stalking.

Second, the convention protects rights of access (or visitation, as it is called in some countries). Thus even foreign parents who do not have custody over their children can use the convention to try to preserve contact with children brought to Japan. Courts in some convention countries have been aggressive in interpreting this provision to ensure that even a parent with full custody does not use those rights to frustrate visitation by the other by relocating to a foreign country. Since Japanese courts typically only award visitation if both parents agree, and visitation orders are unenforceable anyway, any improvement in this area would be welcome.
Enforcement of return orders is likely to be the big hurdle for Japan in implementing the convention. Enforcement is an obstacle even in strictly domestic disputes between Japanese parents over child abduction or denial of access. Since family court orders are unenforceable, one wonders what will happen when the first return order is issued by a Japanese judge under the convention. It is, after all, clearly limited to the civil aspects of child abduction it does not require that children be returned by force.

In the U.S. or Canada, whether a case arises under the convention or not, court orders are backed by quasi-criminal sanctions such as contempt. In some states interfering with custody or visitation is itself a criminal offense. Even if it is not, a parent in these countries seeking to enforce access rights or the return of a child can usually call upon the police to help them. In extreme cases intransigent parents resisting enforcement may be arrested or jailed.

In Japan, however, police typically do not get involved in family matters or in the enforcement of court orders in civil matters. The only remedy available to parents with even a whiff of penal sanction involved is habeas corpus (which requires an abducting parent to appear with the child in court), though access to this remedy in disputes between parents has been limited by the Supreme Court.

It seems unlikely that Japan joining the convention alone would change this basic aspect of the country’s legal system, since it would involve the police (and prosecutors) in a vast new area of law enforcement family disputes when only a tiny fraction of such disputes would involve the Hague Convention. Perhaps some enforcement mechanism limited to convention cases will be developed, though it would be an odd (though not impossible) result if parents and children from abroad got a better deal in the Japanese legal system than those actually living in Japan. Furthermore, bureaucratic imperatives being at least as important as actual law in Japan, it is difficult to imagine how the police and prosecutors could ever find it in their interests to be arresting Japanese parents (more often than not mothers) in order to return Japanese children to foreigners.

Thus, if Japan joins the convention, its implementation may develop in one of three ways. First, it may be implemented as it is in other major countries and abducted children will be returned through its procedures great! Or judges will issue return orders that prove impossible to enforce, leaving things largely as they are now. Perhaps convention cases will be given greater access to habeas corpus, which could be an improvement.

A third possibility, however, is that rather than issuing orders they know are unenforceable (or to avoid being seen as favoring foreigners), judges aggressively take advantage of the exceptions in the convention. One of these is that children do not need to be returned if it would « expose the child to physical or psychological harm or otherwise place the child in an intolerable situation. » In some countries this exception is limited to cases where the child would be returned to a war zone, or similar situations.
However, if the reasons used for denying visitation are any indicator excessive present-buying, visitation making the custodial parent ill, etc. are any indicator, the bar for applying the psychological harm exception may end up being low.

Under the convention, another reason for refusing to return the child is if « the child objects and has attained an age and degree of maturity at which it is appropriate to take account of its views. » Since the convention does not specify what this age is, it gives courts a high degree of flexibility.
Thus Japanese courts could continue to reward parental alienation by placing the burden of deciding on children. Getting children to say « I don’t want to see Daddy Mommy » seems to work pretty well for getting a court to deny visitation, so getting them to say « I want to stay in Japan with Daddy/Mommy/Grandma » may work in convention cases too.

I feel like a bit of a wet blanket writing this. Make no mistake, it will be great if Japan actually does join the convention. Whatever help Japanese authorities need in understanding and implementing the convention should be offered unstintingly. Anything which improves the situation of children abducted to Japan is to be applauded. And if joining the convention somehow leads to improvements for the many more Japanese children in strictly domestic cases who lose one parent through judicial action (or inaction), it would be almost revolutionary.

*Colin P.A. Jones is a professor at Doshisha University Law School.*

Source : http://www.hawaii.edu/aplpj/articles/APLPJ_08.2_jones.pdf

You can find below the Japanese translation of this article)

Film （映画）

L’ E N F E R
（地獄）

（Titre japonais : 美しき運命の傷痕）
(Utsukushiki unmei no kizuato : Les belles cicatrices du destin)

Film français (2005) du réalisateur bosniaque Danis Tanovic, avec Emmanuelle Béart, Carole Bouquet, Karin Viard, Marie Gillain, Jacques Perrin, Jacques Gamblin, Guillaume Canet, Miki Manojlovic et Jean Rochefort, …

A travers le destin parallèle de trois sœurs, de vies et d’âge éloignés et ne se voyant plus depuis des années, ayant néanmoins en commun une impossibilité à réussir leur vie affective, nous remontons peu à peu à l’origine de ces blessures du cœur qui les mènent à l’échec : le rejet et l’élimination de leur père, sur la base d’un tragique malentendu, par une mère toute puissante et vengeresse qui a tordu en elles les racines de l’amour et rompu le lien familial.

Le film fait référence au mythe grec de Médée la magicienne, fille du roi de Colchide et nièce de Circé (Cf. Médée, tragédie d’Euripide). Médée aide Jason à s’emparer de la Toison d’Or, puis devient son épouse. Mais Jason lui est infidèle et la jalousie de Médée est immense. Pour le punir, elle sait qu’elle ne pourra l’atteindre qu’à travers leurs enfants, pour lesquels Jason éprouve un très grand amour. Médée les tue de ses mains et Jason, fou de douleur et de désespoir, se suicide.

Par la présentation du suicide quasiment programmé du père et du meurtre psychique des trois filles, amputées par leur mère de la moitié d’elles-mêmes et vouées au malheur, le film montre l’intemporalité du mythe et son actualité : la Médée moderne (incarnée de façon impressionante par une Carole Bouquet hiératique et sans âge) n’est ni moins cruelle, ni moins exempte de regrets. Et les effets de ses pulsions destructrices, mues par une féminité et un instinct maternel pervertis, sont tout aussi dévastateurs et tragiques : jalousie, dureté et fantasme de toute puissance et d’appropriation exclusive des enfants sont les ingrédients de ce cocktail mortifère qui, ajoutés à la certitude d’être dans le juste et dans le bien (le bon droit et la bonne conscience), font alors d’une mère et d’une épouse (qui se pense comme mère et épouse modèles), un implacable bourreau. Murée dans sa haine jusqu’au bout, même après la révélation de la vérité, elle semble n’avoir rien appris et n’être plus capable de rien ressentir, pas même (surtout) la détresse de ses filles.

Sentiment d’étrangeté, pour le moins inquiétante et ô combien déroutante, que celui éprouvé par beaucoup de Roméo même fidèles, voyant leur aimante Juliette se transformer, comme fatalement, en peu d’années et généralement après la venue des enfants, en une glaciale et funeste Médée qui les prive désormais autant de son affection que de celle de leurs enfants, déniant injustement à ceux-ci, de façon discrétionnaire, tout accès à leur père. Et qui le pousse, lui, vers la sortie…
Mystère du devenir de ce que Freud dénomme le Continent noir : « (…) elle rassemble les traits d’un irrationnel où la maternité productive et positive se renverse en une puissance de mort. Or tel est bien le problème central de la réflexion féministe contemporaine. En effet, si dans la fonction maternelle, une femme peut ressentir, en tant qu’individu, le risque d’un clivage opéré sur son corps et d’une perte d’identité, si la maternité ne dit pas le tout de la féminité, cette dernière sera renvoyée, par un principe d’exclusion, à l’espace négatif de la sorcière : solitaire, mutique, asociale, improductive, repliée sur une féminité en absence, confrontée à l’image persécutrice de sa propre mère, une telle femme sera projetée dans un processus de déconstruction de type psychotique que l’écriture, ce « garde-fou » (Lara Jefferson, Folle entre les folles), ne suffira pas à détourner ou à objectiver. » (Encyclopædia Universalis, Féminisme).

Cette figure mythique de Médée n’est pas sans évoquer la Yamamba (ou Yama Uba, 山姥)　japonaise, tueuse d’hommes, emmenant l’enfant Kintarô dans les montagnes pour l’élever seule.

Ces exemples-types de dévoiement de la féminité et d’aliénation parentale, aux conséquences tragiques pour les familles, fixés par le mythe dans des cultures aussi éloignées dans le temps et dans l’espace que la Grèce antique, le Japon et la Russie (Baba Yaga), pour ne citer que celles-là, tendraient à montrer l’universalité du type et la dangerosité du problème (1).

Mais le plus inquiétant est que, par un phénomène mis récemment en évidence par la psychogénéalogie, la tragédie a, hélas, toutes les « chances » de se répéter : les générations suivantes, par « fidélité familiale inconsciente », vont, malgré elles, reproduire les comportements d’exclusion et de meurtre symbolique ou réel (suicide provoqué) dont elles ont elles-mêmes souffert, scellant à leur insu leur propre destin et celui de leurs enfants.

Le film de Danis Tanovic illustre bien ce phénomène, fonctionnant comme un pattern reproductible, notamment par l’évocation du destin la sœur aînée, singulièrement nommée Sophie (la Sagesse ?), incarnée par Emmanuelle Béart : dépressive et égarée par la jalousie, elle se vengera de son mari infidèle en l’excluant de la famille, reproduisant comme mécaniquement sur ses propres enfants et sur son mari l’aliénation parentale dont elle a été elle-même victime étant enfant (aliénation dont on peut sans peine imaginer les conséquences sur la génération suivante, et ainsi de suite…).

Peut-on parler de destin ? C’est peut-être une des faiblesses du film que de s’appuyer sur cette référence individuelle antique, et de l’opposer aux coïncidences de la modernité. Car s’il y a « destin », il est, ici, nécessairement collectif, c’est-à-dire qu’il est le produit d’un inconscient familial. C’est alors de répétition inconsciente d’une pathologie familiale qu’il faudrait plutôt parler, et ici de Syndrome d’Aliénation Parentale (S.A.P, ou P.A.S en anglais, en japonais 片親引き離し症候群, kataoya hikihanashi shôkôgun).

Dans un tel contexte familial, la mise en évidence du syndrome est la première étape à franchir pour éviter de s’égarer sur de fausses pistes, et un long travail, aux résultats incertains, restera à faire ensuite avec les enfants pour en déjouer les maléfices et défaire les nœuds, en tentant de (les) sortir de l’enfer de la répétition.

Mais encore faudra-t-il que les conditions, ou les évènements, le permettent…

Achille

———-
(1) Voir, à ce propos, une approche récente du substrat psychologique de ces comportements pervers dans les ouvrages suivants :

• NAOURI Aldo（アルド・ナウリ）, Les Pères et les Mères, Odile Jacob, poches, Paris, 2005
• 三砂ちずる「オニババ化する女達」、光文社新書，２００４年

MISUNA Chizuru, Onibaba ka suru onnatachi, (Les femmes qui se changent en
sorcières), 2004, Kôbunsha shinsho

—————————————–

（日本語訳）

片親引き離しがいかに危険であるか

映画 L’ENFER「地獄」（邦題：『美しき運命の傷痕』）

フランス映画（2005年）。監督：ダニス・タノヴィッチ、出演：エマニュエル・ベアール、キャロル・ブーケ、カリン・ヴィアール、マリー・ジラン、ジャック・ペラン、ジャック・ガンブラン、ギヨーム・カネ、ミキ・マノヨヴィッチ、ジャン・ロシュフォール他。

互いに生活圏も年齢も離れ、長い間会うことのなかった三人の姉妹－しかし愛情生活においてうまくいったためしがないという共通点を持つ－三人の姉妹の運命を平行して辿りながら、物語は、彼女らを常に失敗へと導いてしまう心の傷、その原因となっているものに向かって少しずつ遡っていく。それは、悲劇的な誤解から、権力的で復讐心に燃えた母親の手によって父親が拒絶され排除され、結果として三人の姉妹の心の中で愛情の根が捻じ曲げられ、家族の絆が断ち切られてしまったことであった。
この映画は、ギリシア神話に登場する魔女メデイアを典拠としている。メデイアはコルキス王の娘であり、キルケの姪である（エウリピデスの悲劇『メデイア』参照）。メデイアはイアソンが金羊毛を手に入れるのを助け、その後彼の妻となる。しかしイアソンは彼女に対して不貞を働き、メデイアの嫉妬は強烈に燃え上がる。彼女は知っていた。イアソンへの罰として、彼が溺愛している自分らの子供たちを手にかけるほかに、彼に打撃を与える方法がないことを。メデイアは自らの手で自分とイアソンの間の子供を殺し、イアソンは苦痛と絶望に駆られ、自ら命を絶つ。

あらかじめ計画されていたかのような父の自殺、そして三人の姉妹の精神的殺害、つまり母によって心の半分を抉り取られ、不幸へと晒される三人の姉妹を描くこの映画はメデイア神話の永遠、普遍性と現代性を示している。現代のメデイア（女優キャロル・ブーケによって、年齢不詳でおどろおどろしい姿が見事に演じられている）は残酷さにおいても、後悔の念のかけらもないという点でも古代のメデイアと同じである。倒錯した女性性および母性本能によって突き動かされる彼女の破壊的衝動の行き着く先は、嫉妬、冷酷、それから子供に対して絶対的な力を持ち、子供を独占的に所有するという幻想である。そしてそれらは調合されて致死的な毒液となり、さらに自分は正しく善である（正当性と良心に従っている）との確信と結びつくことで、母をそして妻（本人は自分を理想的な母、妻であると信じているが）を、仮借ない死刑執行人としてしまうのである。真実が明らかになった後でさえ、ひたすら自らの憎しみの中に閉じこもり、そこから何も学ぼうとせず、自分の娘たちの苦悩を何一つ感じることができないといった風である。
異様さ、我々を不安にさせる、なんとも度外れの異様さである。それはジュリエット（＝恋人、妻）がわずかの年月の間に、多くは子供の出産の後に、冷酷で不吉なメデイアに決定的に変貌してしまうのを目の当たりにする貞節な多くのロミオ（＝夫、恋人）たちが感じている異様さである。メデイアはその時以来、不当にも子供たちから父親を引き離し、欲するままに、父親とのいかなる接触も禁じて、子供から自分の愛情を取り上げ、また子供らの愛情も取り上げてしまうのである。そして父親のほうは出口へと追いやるのである…
フロイトの言う「暗黒大陸」への変貌がいかにして起こるかは実に大きな謎である。「（……）彼女はある非合理の持つあらゆる表情を集約している。そこでは生産的で肯定的なはずの母性が死の力へと反転するのである。ところで、これこそが現代のフェミニストの省察の中心問題である。実際、母の役割において、一人の女性が個人として、自身の肉体の上でおこる亀裂と自己同一性喪失の危機を感じることができるなら、また母性が女性性のすべてではないなら、この女性性は、排除の原理によって、魔女のネガティヴな空間へと向けられるであろう。孤独、無言症的,　非社会的、非生産的となり、ある女性性欠如の状態に閉じこもり、迫害者としての自分の母親のイメージに向き合わされる。このような女性は精神病性の破壊過程の中に投げ出され、「狂気からの守り手」としての記述行為（ララ・ジェファーソン、狂女たちの中の狂女）もそれを思いとどまらせ、客観化することはできない（『エンサイクロペディア・ユニベルサリス』、「フェミニズム」の項目）。
このメデイアという神話的人物像は、日本の山姥を思わせずにはおかない。山姥も男殺しであり、子供の金太郎を一人で育てるために山に連れて行く。
家族の悲劇的結末をもたらす、こうした女性性の逸脱と片親引き離しの典型が、古代ギリシア、日本そしてロシア（ババ・ヤーガ）という、時も場所も大きく隔たった文化圏の神話の中に見いだされるが、このことはこの典型が普遍的であること、そしてこの問題の孕む危険性がいかに大きいものであるかを示している（１） 。
しかし最も心配されるべき事は、精神家族系譜学によって最近明らかにされたひとつの現象のために、悲劇が際限なく繰り返されることである。続く世代は「無意識の家族の慣習」によって、望まずして排除的そして象徴的および現実的（自殺）な行動を再生産するのであり、自身それに苦しむだけでなく、知らず知らずのうちに自分たちの運命と彼らの子供たちの運命を固く結び付けてしまうのである。
ダニス・タノヴィッチの映画はこの再生産的なパターン現象を、奇妙にもソフィー（＝「ソフィア（知恵）」？）と名づけられたエマニュエル・ベアール演ずる長女を通して見事に描き出す。鬱体質で、嫉妬に狂い、不貞をおかす夫を家族から排除することで復讐し、自動的に、自分自身の子供たちそして夫に対し片親引き離しの状態を再生産するのであるが、彼女自身が子供時代にその犠牲者であったのである（片親引き離しが次に続く諸世代にいかなる結果をもたらすかを想像するのは困難ではない）。
ここで果たして運命という言葉を使うのがふさわしいだろうか？メデイアという古代の個別の典拠を物語の基にしつつも、それとは対立的に現代における偶然の一致を描いている点がおそらくこの映画の弱点のひとつであろう。というのも、もし運命ということを言うなら、それは必然的に共同的なもの、つまり、家族内無意識の産物だからである。そうだとすれば、ここではむしろ、家族病理の無意識な繰り返し、つまり、片親引き離し症候群こそが問題になっているというべきではなかろうか。
このような家族状況にあって、この症候群を明らかにすることこそ、誤った道に迷い込まないためになすべき初めの一歩であり、さらにその後には、結末の簡単には見えないひとつの長い仕事が待ち受けている。それは、子供を呪いから解放し、絡まった結び目を解き、子供たちを反復地獄から救う仕事である。
しかし、とにもかくにも我々を取り巻く諸条件、諸情勢がそれを許してくれることが必要なのであるが…

アキレウス
（亀訳）

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（１） こうした倒錯的な行為の心理的基盤となっているものに対する最近の研究として、以下の書物を参照のこと。

• アルド・ナウリ著『父親たち、そして母親たち』、オディール・ジャコブ社、パリ、２００５年。

• 三砂ちずる『オニババ化する女達』、光文社文庫、2004年。