Harakiri

When I first saw this movie, I did not know much about it. I saw it for a class so I was given a little background of the time period. In fact I was pretty much just told this:

This movie takes place during the time where many Samurai were left ronins, or masterless. These samurai were unable to find work and thereby were left in poverty. Eventually many would go up to clans and ask to commit seppuku.

It was dishonorable to refuse such a "noble" request, but most clans did not want samurai to kill themselves on their property so they would just pay the samurai to go elsewhere.

So I watched the movie and well... I loved it. During the class discussion the next day I found most people hated the movie. Not because it was a bad movie, but because of how it made people feel about themselves. And that's exactly why this movie is genius. If you're interested in watching this movie, do not read the summary in detail - reading the summary in detail will deprive you of what one of the key things that made the movie great IMO.

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.

Seven Samurai is pretty great, but I think Harakiri is even better. This tale of a ronin seeking revenge and exposing the flawed samurai code is so close to perfection. The story is engrossing and despite the slow pacing it's never boring. What the production lacks in scale it makes up for with emotional intensity. The sparse, ominous score is perfect for this film. The direction and cinematography are masterful and the camera's slow pans and zooms really butter my croissant. The editing is great and purposeful too. There's not a single weak performance but Tatsuya Nakadai in the leading role steals the show.

My only complaints are with some of the pacing and fight choreography. There's a standoff scene in the middle that could have been cut (since it felt like a cheap way to build tension and it wouldn't make sense for them to continue waiting afterward) and the long flashback could have also been trimmed. The film is 2 hours 13 minutes but I think exactly 2 hours would have been perfect. From a fight choreography standpoint the one-on-one fight scenes were well done but climax was shaky. There were many interesting ideas and moments in there, but also several points where I was like "okay, how did they not strike him there?"

Harakiri is an outstanding film that deserves more attention. If you haven't seen this film check it out. The Criterion restoration is absolutely beautiful. I intentionally kept this review vague since it's best to go into it knowing as little as possible. With a few thousand more ratings, this film would be pretty high up on the IMDb Top 250, and I'd be delighted to see it there.

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.

"Harakiri" ("Seppuku") (Japanese, 1962): It is the 17th century. A young Samurai warrior arrives at a mansion, asking to perform his ritual death there. In a series of flashbacks, we learn who he is, why he came, and what has occurred since. Although quietly told by another ex-warrior (about whom we also learn more), this is an interesting story that builds in complexity and tension. Debates about rituals and appearances may at first seem to hold more significance in old Japan than in the contemporary United States, but it is not difficult to translate and implement such thoughts. Love, honor, duty, family, children, saving "face", determination, desperation…they all exist in OUR everyday lives. Dramatically photographed in beautiful black & white, given a strong Japanese score, and paced so that even the mildly patient will be glad they saw it, "Harakiri" is epically huge, and a must-see for story & film lovers.