Patriotism

I remember reading in 2005 that Yukio Mishima's film Patriotism (Yūkoku in Japanese) (1966) had been found in his former home. His wife, who died ten years before the discovery, had requested that all copies of the film be destroyed after her husband's suicide in 1970, and so none were thought to exist for a number of years until the negative was found in a wooden box.

Patriotism is a film directed by Mishima and based on his short story of the same name, published in English in Death in Midsummer and Other Stories. It's thirty minutes long, black and white, and silent, and adopts the style of modern Nō theater, with intertitles to aid in understanding the context of the story. The context in part is the Ni Ni Roku Incident of February 1936, an attempted coup d'état in Japan. Lieutenant Shinji Takeyama (played by Mishima), who has been commanded to execute some of his fellow countrymen, decides to kill himself rather than carry out the orders. His wife, Reiko, agrees happily to go to "another world" with him. The film is divided into scenes (five, I think), and we are shown a process leading up to their deaths and then the suicides. The husband and wife make love for the last time before their deaths, and one close-up after another—shoulders, necks, chests, hair, backs, lips—tell the story of their bodies in love and then their bodies during and after death. The suicide of the lieutenant is graphic, with blood splattering and entrails seeping out, and is quite a feat in terms of realism for this age of film. What I found most compelling are the wife's subtle facial expressions, which do more to tell the story than what dialogue could have done if it were part of the film. In both the short story and the film, I hoped Reiko would come to her senses after her husband offs himself; but no, she cuts into and ends herself as well, though these moments are far less graphic.

Mishima would commit seppuku himself only four years later, and watching the film you can't help but wonder what influence his film had on his death. Had he decided already this was the way he'd go? Was the film a sort of dry run? Or was something else at play here? Like perhaps Mishima created a piece of art without linking it to himself on any personal level, only to have it affect him years later, perhaps without him even knowing. I'd like to think that the latter is true, that this is a case of life imitating art, or the taking of a life that imitates the art of someone who has portrayed that very type of death. So while the film doesn't point to Mishima's suicide directly or any plans to go out that way, it certainly foreshadows it as a creation coming from the same mind.

Tampopo

Tampopo (1985), directed by Juzo Itami, is entertaining, funny and occasionally bizarre. Truck drivers Gorō (a cool Tsutomu Yamazaki) and Gun (a young Ken Watanabe) happen upon a run-down ramen shop where they stop for noodles and meet Tampopo (Nobuko Miyamoto), who hasn't mastered the art of making ramen yet. She's nowhere close, actually, and so tough-guy Gorō in a cowboy hat will chivalrously show her the ropes, and will meanwhile fall in love with her, in a reticent sort of way, both well aware he's the wandering type and probably won't be sticking around in the end. All the plot digressions make things more interesting. In the first scene the fourth wall is broken by a gangster and his girl watching a movie (us) as we watch a movie (them). He tells us he can't stand it when people make noise in a theater and warns us not to shed any tears for him should we see him meet his own death (so we know he will). These two pop up now and again, in some outlandish sex-slash-food scenes, as do other eccentrics and deviants. Sometimes called the "noodle western," Tampopo has everything from street fights to heart-melting melodrama to recipe theft. It's offbeat and exemplifies a number of flavors or facets of Japanese humor.

Two hilarious scenes that had me nearly in tears: the spaghetti-eating lesson for a group of ladies who can't stop themselves from slurping up their noodles, and later the part when half a dozen clueless honchos all order the exact same items off a French menu before the young guy accompanying them, an assistant or lackey of some type, orders a much finer, more dignified selection of dishes with confidence and a knowledge of French cuisine but oblivious to how searingly he's embarrassed his senpai. An entertaining movie and good fun.

Kwaidan

Kwaidan (1965) (meaning "ghost stories") is a 182-minute horror film directed by Masaki Kobayashi. Based on works by Lafcadio Hearn, mostly from his collection Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things, the movie is composed of four independent tales: The Black Hair, The Woman of the Snow, Hoichi the Earless, and In a Cup of Tea.

I've been fascinated by Japanese ghost stories since first coming to Japan in the mid-90s. It was around then that I visited the grave of Oiwa Tamiya in Sugamo, Tokyo, for a magazine article I'd been working on about Yotsuya Kaidan. As the story goes, Oiwa was betrayed by her husband, the ronin Iemon, and after being poisoned to death she seeks revenge as a mournful, hateful ghost. I still have a photograph of her grave, and in the photo a spiral of smoke appears to be rising⁠ out of the stone monument. After I took the picture, I checked to see if any incense was burning. None was.

Around that time, I was also reading Hearn and discovering how different Japanese ghost stories are compared to the haunting tales of the West, particularly so for their deeply melancholic themes and their morose, unyielding female spirits, and the otherworldly ways of depicting the horrific consequences of injustice. How so many of these stories were passed on to instill in us a reverence for the dead, equal to that which we must hold for the living, or else.

Kwaidan is remarkable for its vivid, unsettling sets and also for its soundtrack (frequent long stretches of silence offset by screechy Japanese folk instruments and splintering wood). Roger Ebert described the film as "an assembly of ghost stories that is among the most beautiful films I've seen." The scenes are mesmerizing throughout. They make you feel spellbound and tense, and aware that this preternatural world Kobayashi has created is forever implacable. That its tortured, vindictive souls will be roused with a blood-curdling passion. That the snow woman will freeze the old man with her icy breath. That a wandering spirit will rip the ears off the blind musician.

All four stories entrance, but "The Woman of the Snow" stands out for its patience in allowing the story to unfold at just the right pace. Also for the blizzard and other disturbing weather, like those all-seeing skies with their ever-watchful eyes.

Kwaidan (1965), "The Woman of the Snow"

Kwaidan (1965), "The Woman of the Snow"

Kwaidan (1965), "The Woman of the Snow"

Kwaidan (1965), "Hoichi the Earless"