Harakiri

I saw Harakiri (Seppuku) in a new 35 mm print at NYC's Film Forum. This is a brilliant use of a narrow period genre to explosively indict politics and culture. Writers Shinobu Hashimoto and Yasuhiko Takiguchi surely must have been as inspired by "The Count of Monte Cristo," Ambrose Bierce and Howard Hawks' Westerns as much as by samurai literature and movies.

The film begins deceptively as a story within a story, seemingly providing a traditional example of upholding samurai honor, such as in the conventional, oft-retold tale of "The 47 Ronin." The context is set at a time when the central government, the shogunate, is supplanting local clans and arbitrarily unemploying thousands of people, notably their samurai, forcing them into the mercenary mode of ronin at best and begging for food at worse. But the parallels to the 20th century are made repeatedly explicit as the samurai who comes to this clan seeking help is from Hiroshima.

Very gradually we get further insight on the tale within a tale, as we see more flashbacks within flashbacks into what each character has been doing before these confrontations and we get uneasy inklings that the moral of the story may not be what it appears at first and the stakes get higher and higher with almost unbearable tension.

It is almost halfway through the film until we see a female and we suddenly see an alternative model of masculinity, where a priority is put on family, support, education and creative productivity. In comparison to the macho opening relationships, with their emphasis on formal militaristic loyalty to a hierarchy, a loving husband and father is practically a metrosexual. Seeing the same stalwart samurai making casual goo goo sounds to his grandbaby puts the earlier, ritualized scenes in sharp relief, particularly the recurring image of the clan's armor which seems less and less imposing and is finally destroyed as an empty symbol.

The psychological tension in the confrontations in the last third of the film is more excruciating than the actual violence. Even when we thought we already knew the outcome from the flashbacks, the layers of perception of relationships and personalities are agonizingly peeled away with each thrust of a sword to reveal the depths of the horrifying hypocrisy of the political and social structure. And those are just the overwhelming cultural resonances that a 21st century American can glean. Like "Downfall (Der Untergang)," it reveals the inhumane mentality that led to World War II.

The repeating motif of long walks then confrontations down empty corridors emphasizes the stultifying bureaucratic maze that entraps the characters. The revenge motifs are accented by startlingly beautiful cinematography that recalls traditional Japanese art, including drops of blood like first snow flakes then a waterfall.

The over all effect of this masterpiece is emotionally draining.

Harakiri is an excellent human drama set in feudal Japan that involves a ronin presenting himself to a powerful clan and asking to commit harikiri. However, through a series of flashbacks we see that this ronin is motivated by more than the idea of dying honorably. The events that follow are a critique of the feudal system and a celebration of dying for one's beliefs.

Every frame in Harikiri is wonderfully composed and a treat to view. The cinematography is crisp, the sets wonderful and the actors are spectacular. Much can be said about this film's technical merits as well as its social implications. I found out about this film through my love of Akira Kurosawa's samurai dramas (who else...) and I must say that it is very different from Kurosawa-sans work although it draws inevitable comparisons. Due to its themes, Harikiri is more of an anti samurai film. Generally Kurosawa's work seems to glorify the honor of the samurai and celebrate them as Japanese heroes by showing them gloriously in battle. Kurosawa is the Japanese John Ford, taking an icon from his culture and celebrating it. Harikiri exposes the virtues that Kurosawa portrays as being "a facade" to directly quote the film.

I say this so as not to mislead any potential viewers, I do not know enough about Japanese history to judge what the samurai really stood for and really I am not concerned with the idea. This is the only Kobyashi film I have seen and it has been brought to my attention that many of his films deal with similar themes. All in all I think that Harikiri is a wonderful film that offers a new take on feudal Japan.

This film is the purest distillation of the spirit of Greek tragedy ever put on celluloid. Yes, this is a review of Seppuku, a Japanese film released in 1962. Perhaps it took a non-Westerner, free of all of the cultural baggage and ridiculous associations, to see straight into the heart of the tragic mode and make it palpable and alive in the twentieth century. That is not all: the black and white cinematography is both formally assured and often outrageously daring; the soundtrack is one of the finest efforts of the greatest Japanese composer of the 20th century (or any century for that matter); the acting is demonically inspired; and the narrative is relentlessly gripping and involving. The film illuminates the relationship between the individual and society and between society and history. It is a tender meditation on familial love and the ties of friendship that transcend even death. This film will cut open your bowels, pull your soul out, and force you to stare it in the face. There may be other films that attain similar heights, but I cannot imagine any film, ever, being more perfect. Forget Citizen Kane, Seven Samurai, the Godfather, etc. etc. all of those commodified canonical works that everybody raves about because everybody else is raving about them. Don't get me wrong, they're fine--but this stuff is 200 proof. See it today. Buy it yesterday.

The story of a Samurai, who requests to commit harakiri.

I have read many of the reviews with a great deal of respect, many have such an understanding of the culture, and a very deep understanding of the content of the film, for my ignorance I come here as a novice, with no understanding, so from my viewpoint, I'm watching a film I've been told I'd love. I've seen one samurai film prior to this.

First off, I had to check it was actually made in 1962, it felt way more advanced than that, the concepts and production.

I thoroughly engaged with it, the story was fascinating, and where I expected it to tell a general story, the focus was pretty much on one single character, Hanshiro Tsugumo.

Some of the pacing me be hard for some, the long drawn out scenes, I find very purposeful. The music is engaging, the acting terrific.

I wasn't surprised to learn that the swords and multitude of blades used in this movie were real, and that I think is one of the film's most successfully aspects, its authentic, a story presented in a very real fashion.

It's a powerful story, 9/10.

The generation that came after the renown Japanese directors Kurosawa, Ozu and Mizoguchi is generally regarded as less talented. The main representatives of this generation are Kaneto Shindo, Kon Ichikawa en Masaki Kobayshi. Personally I would like to make an exception for Masaki Kobayashi, who is in my opinion the equal of Kurosawa, Ozu and Muzoguchi.

Kobayashi is best known in the West for his ghost stories "Kwaidan" (1964). The rest of his repertoire, among which the samurai movie "Harakiri" (1962), is not to be sneezed at either.

A samurai movie is usually seen as a sort of Western of the East. Main ingredients of the Western genre are action and the battle beween the law (good) and the villains (bad).

In "Harakiri" (which literal translation is: hara = belly , kiri = cutting) in stead of the law there is the samurai code of honor (Bushido in Japanese). But this code of honor is not the good element of the film. Rather it is revealed as a force of ruthlessness and hypocrisy. In the film the Bushido is represented by the Li clan.

In "Harakiri" there is also little action. Only towards the end there is something that can be seen as a "shoot out". But in this shoot out the evil is not overcome, but only revealed as shallow (the idol of the Li clan is shown to be an empty armor).

Translated in Western movie genres "Harakiri" is therefore no Western. Maybe it can be categorised as a Court room drama. The heart of the film consists of main character Hanshiro Tsugumo (Tatsuya Nakadai) telling his sad story. This story is in essence a requisitor against the Bushido. The performance of Nakadai as a broken Tsugumo is brilliant. His requisitor is not only aimed at the Li clan, but also against his own past. Once Tsugumo also was a samurai.

Kobayashi was a convinced humanist all his life. Apart from "Harakiri" he also made the 9,5 hours epos "The human condition" (1959-1961). This epos is situated in World War II. For Kobayashi kamikaze was just another form of Harakiri and thus just another utterance of the old Bushido.