DVD REVIEW<\/p>\n
Masaki Kobayashi\u2019s HARAKIRI<\/p>\n
by Lyle Sylvander<\/p>\n
(Fall 2005 Issue)<\/p>\n <\/span>The Criterion Collection continues its reissue of classic Japanese films with the release of Masayaki Kobayashi\u2019s Harakiri, winner of The film takes place in 1630, during the early reign of the Tokugawa shogunate.\u00a0 Many clans and fiefdoms were destroyed by the As Ritchie explains, Harakiri continues the critique of authoritarian power in Kobayashi\u2019s previous trilogy The Human Condition.\u00a0 The Criterion should be commended, as always, for the quality of the restored print and digital transfer.\u00a0 The supplemental interview with DVD REVIEW Masaki Kobayashi\u2019s HARAKIRI by Lyle Sylvander (Fall 2005 Issue) The Criterion Collection continues its reissue of classic Japanese films with the release of Masayaki Kobayashi\u2019s Harakiri, winner of the Special Jury Prize at the 1963 Cannes Film Festival. Harakiri was an enormous international hit and is universally acknowledged as a masterwork of Japan\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":59,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-370","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/PkZ7m-5Y","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":372,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/370\/revisions\/372"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/59"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nthe Special Jury Prize at the 1963 Cannes Film Festival. Harakiri was an enormous international hit and is universally acknowledged
\nas a masterwork of Japan\u2019s Golden Age of cinema.\u00a0 Yet its director never achieved the iconic status of fellow contemporaries Akira
\nKurosawa, Yasujiro Ozu and Kenj Mizoguchi.\u00a0 Criterion seeks to correct this imbalance by offering a host of supplemental material on
\nan additional DVD.\u00a0 Included are interviews with film scholar Donald Ritchie, star Tatsuya Nakadai, screenwriter Shinobu Hashimoto
\nand Kobayashi himself (filmed in 1993, three years before his death).\u00a0 As is the case with most great filmmakers, Kobayashi
\nexpressed a unique vision with thematic consistency.\u00a0\u00a0 While Kobayashi never equaled the vast output of some of his more famous
\ncolleagues (particularly Kurosawa), he nevertheless produced a masterwork in Harakiri that stands among the best of Japanese
\ncinema.<\/p>\n
\nTokugawa consolidation of power and masterless samurai (ronin) wandered the countryside looking for employment.\u00a0 One such
\nronin, Motome Chijiiwa (Akira Ishihama) arrives at the court of the Iyi clan and requests that he be permitted to perform harakiri or
\nseppuku (ritual suicide).\u00a0\u00a0 Chijiiwa has lost his livelihood and is hoping that the clan, which is protected by its powerful Tokugawa
\nally, hire him on as a retainer instead.\u00a0 The clan is contemptuous of such tactics, which are quite common among destitute ronin, and
\nthey decide to preside over his death rather than provide assistance.\u00a0 In an ultimate act of humiliation, Chijiiwa is forced to
\ndisembowel himself with his bamboo sword, as he has sold his real samurai sword.\u00a0 This story is told in flashback and the film\u2019s plot
\nfocuses on Chijiiwa\u2019s father-in-law, Hanshiro Tsugumo (Tatsuya Nakadai), who arrives at the Iyi court with a similar request to
\ncommit harakiri.\u00a0 Eventually, Tsugumo shames the Iyi clan elders before their retainers and avenges his son-in-law\u2019s death.<\/p>\n
\nfeudalist structure of Tokugawa Japan provides the same moral conflict that the modern military did in the earlier film.\u00a0 Kobayashi
\nrejects individual submission in the face of power and condemns the hierarchical power structure of feudal Japan.\u00a0 By exposing the
\nhypocrisy of the Iyi clan elders (the plot details won\u2019t be divulged), Tsugumo attacks the very foundation of the bushido code and
\nexposes the entire societal structure as an empty shell.\u00a0 In this way, Kobayashi has made an \u201canti-samurai\u201d film perhaps best
\nexemplified by the suit of armor at the center of the Iyi court.\u00a0 The film begins with an isolated shot of the imposing suit surrounded
\nby darkness and white mist.\u00a0 At the end of the film, Tsugumo tears the suit apart and reveals the emptiness beneath during the
\nclimactic battle.\u00a0 Similarly, Kobayashi shoots most of the scenes with a formalistic and ordered placement of people and objects.\u00a0 In
\ntimes of distress, his camera becomes angular and discordant, with jarring close-ups of eyes and faces, particularly during
\nChijiiwa\u2019s act of seppuku.\u00a0 Aided by Nakadai\u2019s intense performance and Yoshio Miyajima\u2019s stark black and white photography,
\nKobayashi creates a mood of pervasive tension as Tsugumo and his enemies engage in psychological warfare \u2013 the Iyi elders know
\nthat he has something other than seppuku in mind and that appearances aren\u2019t what they seem.\u00a0 As in the best of tragedy, there is a
\nsense of inevitable fatality about the proceedings.\u00a0 The corrupt and evil ways of the clan lead to its own nihilistic undoing.\u00a0 The film
\nends with a final shot of the restored empty body of armor, indicating that despite what has transpired, shogunate Japan will
\ncontinue to be ruled by the blind vestiges of totalitarian power.<\/p>\n
\nNakadai is especially informative on the making of the film and his approach to the role of Tsugumo.\u00a0 As a member of Tokyo\u2019s
\nShingeki (New Theatre), Nakadai\u2019s performance embodies the individualism and resistance to conformity of postwar Japan.
\nHashimoto\u2019s interview details the writing of the screenplay and places the concept of seppuku within the thematic context of the
\nfilm.\u00a0 Both artists detail the creative process during production and their working relationships with the uncompromising
\nKobayashi.\u00a0 Kobayashi\u2019s interview is a disappointment, however, as the director comes across as rambling and eccentric.\u00a0 But, that
\nshould not diminish one\u2019s opinion of this great filmmaker.\u00a0 After all, directors are judged on the merits of their creative work rather
\nthan their social skills.\u00a0 By this criterion, Harakiri reveals Masaki Kobayashi to be a great master of cinema.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"