Andrew reviews Schrader's Mishima and Patriotism
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| "Damn you!!! You forgot to refill the toilet paper!" |
Paul Schrader’s Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters is one
of the great unseen biopics of the 1980s; an eclectic and highly cinematic
investigation into the heart of the world famous and controversial Japanese
author, Yukio Mishima. Considered one of
the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century, he was
nominated three times for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Simultaneously an artist, playwright, poet,
actor and filmmaker, the beloved author quickly gained notoriety for his radical
imperialist leanings and bisexuality.
On November 25, 1970, he publicly attempted a failed coup d'état at the Tokyo
Headquarters of the Eastern Command in an effort to restore the Emperor to
political power and committed seppuku.
He was 29 years old. An
unresolved sore spot for many Japanese, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters
attempts to
answer a still troubling question: was his suicide wanton insanity or the
ultimate act of artistic expression?
Produced
by George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola, Mishima is divided into four
distinct chapters with the author (Ken Ogata) loosely narrating his own story (Roy
Scheider in the English release version) in black-and-white flashbacks from his
youth with his strict upbringing to his commercial success post WWII. In various stages of his life, the film segues
into a highly stylized and colorfully rendered triptych of his books The
Temple of the Golden Pavilion, Kyoko’s House, and Runaway
Horses. Within each dramatization of his books are
projections of the author’s personal life as Schrader cross-cuts between
Mishima’s past and the last day of his life, forming a compendium of the
author’s transcendent aesthetic ambition and unquenchable inner turmoil. Driving the tension between Mishima’s art,
life and yearning for death is an iconic minimalist score by Philip Glass
(re-purposed in parts for Peter Weir’s The Truman Show).
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| "I suppose if I bite down on this hose, it won't hurt as bad when I bash my own brain in." |
If any
film could preclude Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain in terms of its visual
splendor, narrative complexity and achieving transcendence through the
conscious acceptance of death, it is Schrader’s Mishima. Given the difficulty of Japan’s digestion of the
famed author’s coup de grâce, the film became the subject of intense
controversy upon completion, as Japan’s most polarizing non-subject was
rejected almost immediately. To this
day, the film remains to have a formal release in the country. Things didn’t fare well either in America
either, as a young 1980s moviegoer knew little to nothing of the man’s infamy
and thus passed on it. In recent years,
however, Mishima’s reputation has grown considerably among cinephiles for the lovely
production design thanks to the late Eiko Ishioka and its best-selling
soundtrack. As a biography, Mishima
both shed
light on one of the world’s most enigmatic artistic figures and broke the mold
in terms of how to paint a multifaceted picture of an intensely complex
man.
Mishima doesn’t judge or have all
the answers, but is as close to entering the man’s worldview through his life
and his art as any non-fiction piece ever created.
Patriotism
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| "Yes. Cuddles are very serious. Get some." |
A key
scene in Paul Schrader’s biopic of world famous Japanese author Yukio Mishima
involved scenes of himself on the set of his clandestine seppuku short film, Patriotism. Shot in total secrecy with some of the top
technicians of the Japanese film industry at the time, the film is a Noh
theater piece about a soldier (Mishima himself) who partook in a failed coup
d'état and is instructed to kill his friends.
Instead, he and his wife make love and commit seppuku. Set to Richard Wagner’s Tristan Und
Isolde, and
lensed in clean black and white, the short is a fascinating footnote to the
Schrader film in that it provides a highly stylized insight into the mind of
its creator, Yukio Mishima. His thirst
for Samurai-style death as a singular act of beauty isn’t tonally dissimilar from
Nagisa Oshima’s dramatization of the Sada Abe incident, In the Realm of
the Senses,
and its genital mutilation.
Incidentally,
after Mishima actually did follow through with his obsession with seppuku on
that fateful day, his widow demanded all copies of the short be destroyed. Miraculously, the original negatives turned
up circa 2005 inside a tea box warehouse at Mishima’s home in Tokyo and the film
was released by Criterion as a special edition DVD. In a way, you can’t blame his widow for
initially withdrawing Patriotism from circulation.
The act of violence borne out of passion and love on display here will
no doubt disgust many and Mishima’s own seppuku casts an undeniable dark shadow
over the short. As a standalone piece,
it depends on your interest in Mishima and the film’s place as another artistic
extension of the man’s life and death. I’ll
leave it as an early moment in the brief film career of Mishima, who would also
eventually star in many Yakuza films. Without
having seen the Schrader film or knowing Mishima, it’s difficult to recommend
or give a score on this peculiar yet beautiful curiosity.
-Andrew Kotwicki