In 1961, Yukio Mishima wrote a story titled "Patriotism" in which a soldier and his wife commit ritual suicide in the aftermath of a failed coup. The story was gruesomely prescient, for in 1970 Mishima himself committed hara-kiri after he and his private army failed to take over a military base and convince the army to restore imperial rule over Japan. In 1966, he adapted the short story as this short black-and-white film where he himself plays the doomed soldier, but in the wake of his death four years later, his widow was so dismayed that she ordered all copies be destroyed. After the turn of the millennium, however, the original negatives were rediscovered, giving audiences to discover this work by a troubled soul that is no great film, but perhaps a crucial part of Mishima's body of work.
A long text introduction in the form of a scroll unwound before the camera sets up the plot: the Ni Ni Roku coup, a real-life 1936 incident where some right-wing officers sought to oust certain bureaucrats and restore the emperor to full power, has failed. Lieutenant Shinji Takeyama was secretly part of the plot, but ultimately left out of the action because he had recently married. Now that the active members of the coup have been captured, Lt. Takeyama will be forced to execute them. To avoid this betrayal of his fellows and preserve his honour, Lt. Takeyama comes home and tells his young wife Reiko (Yoshiko Tsuruoka) that they must kill themselves that night. Without spoken dialogue (only some intertitles), the couple makes love one last time, then the lieutenant cuts his belly open, followed by his wife plunging a dagger into her throat. That is all there is to it, then the credits roll.
The peculiarity of the short story was that all of this was depicted in an overwhelmingly erotic fashion, with the actual suicides being almost a peak of sexual ecstasy. That is carried through into the film. The husband and wife's last lovemaking is shot essentially as soft porn. Then, the lieutenant's suicide is on one hand gory enough to make audiences faint: spluttering blood, intestines falling out, etc, but on the other hand, Mishima's sweaty gyrations before the camera are of a decidedly carnal bent.
The setting is the spare stage set of a noh drama, which lends a uniquely Japanese touch. Yet in the camera techniques, the editing, and the schmaltzy orchestral score, this is a surprisingly traditional film for something shot in 1966. Except perhaps for the nudity, it could easily have been made three decades before.
I must differ from other reviewers: this is not a masterpiece. Audiences will notice how flimsy the plot is, and how this "ritual of love and death" is essentially Mishima acting out his morbid fantasies for primarily his own enjoyment. For most cinephiles, this film can be safely missed. But for fans of Yukio Mishima's writing, this is an aside into filmmaking that sheds some light on his state of mind during a decade he produced several acclaimed works.
A long text introduction in the form of a scroll unwound before the camera sets up the plot: the Ni Ni Roku coup, a real-life 1936 incident where some right-wing officers sought to oust certain bureaucrats and restore the emperor to full power, has failed. Lieutenant Shinji Takeyama was secretly part of the plot, but ultimately left out of the action because he had recently married. Now that the active members of the coup have been captured, Lt. Takeyama will be forced to execute them. To avoid this betrayal of his fellows and preserve his honour, Lt. Takeyama comes home and tells his young wife Reiko (Yoshiko Tsuruoka) that they must kill themselves that night. Without spoken dialogue (only some intertitles), the couple makes love one last time, then the lieutenant cuts his belly open, followed by his wife plunging a dagger into her throat. That is all there is to it, then the credits roll.
The peculiarity of the short story was that all of this was depicted in an overwhelmingly erotic fashion, with the actual suicides being almost a peak of sexual ecstasy. That is carried through into the film. The husband and wife's last lovemaking is shot essentially as soft porn. Then, the lieutenant's suicide is on one hand gory enough to make audiences faint: spluttering blood, intestines falling out, etc, but on the other hand, Mishima's sweaty gyrations before the camera are of a decidedly carnal bent.
The setting is the spare stage set of a noh drama, which lends a uniquely Japanese touch. Yet in the camera techniques, the editing, and the schmaltzy orchestral score, this is a surprisingly traditional film for something shot in 1966. Except perhaps for the nudity, it could easily have been made three decades before.
I must differ from other reviewers: this is not a masterpiece. Audiences will notice how flimsy the plot is, and how this "ritual of love and death" is essentially Mishima acting out his morbid fantasies for primarily his own enjoyment. For most cinephiles, this film can be safely missed. But for fans of Yukio Mishima's writing, this is an aside into filmmaking that sheds some light on his state of mind during a decade he produced several acclaimed works.