by Warner Home Video
Sales Rank: 33157
Price: $79.99
An acclaimed and auspicious biography of an infamous and brilliant Japanese author who performed ritual seppuku in 1970.
Viewer Reviews Paul Schrader has crafted a unique movie viewing experience. Using a combination of styles, he renders a psychological biography of one of the most fascinating and enigmatic personalities in the history of Japan. Schrader goes directly to the source and acts out Mishima's own words in the form of narration and enacting scenes from Mishima's novels. Adding to this, he acts out Mishima's final day when Mishma committed seppuku as a political protest. He also makes heavy use of flashbacks to tell Mishima's lifestory. This three layered storytelling would be ambitious enough in any form but Schrader further layers it by making each of the three novel scenes bold and different from each other.
Each of the three novel scenes has a unique color scheme. Schrader is bold and unsparing in using Mishima's own words to display his mental and emotional turmoil as he struggles to exhibit and explain both his homosexuality and his sadomasochism. Mishima was acutely aware of his own body. He thought he was weak and inferior and he overcompensated with bodybuilding and militarism. Macho guy-bonding activities. Mishima was a bundle of contradictions. A true individual who supported the return of Imperialism. A man who was so exhibitionist, he sought to display himself and his life as a work of art.
I can't really do the movie justice here. You just have to see it. It really is fascinating, imaginative and intensely thought provoking. Watch it in conjunction with Mishima's psychologically autobiographical short film, Patriotism. Then move on to his writing. Rarely has one person fascinated me so much and made me think and feel on so many different levels.
