HARAKIRI (Blu-Ray) - #302

The year is 1630. The capital of Japan is still under its original name, Edo, and though samurais still exist, the shogunate has severely lessened their power. An older, bearded swordsman appears at the gate to the estate of Lord Iyi, a still thriving patriarch. Having lost his own master, this samurai has been a ronin for many years. Tired of eking out a living and only finding starvation for his efforts, he requests that Iyi's men let him use the spacious courtyard of their compound as a place to commit ritual suicide, formally known as "seppuku" but also called "harakiri." Indeed, the original title of Masaki Kobayashi's 1962 film was Seppuku in Japan, but it was likely changed to Harakiri for international release as that is the more commonly known term worldwide.

Respected Japanese actor Tatsuya Nakadai stars as Hanshiro Tsugumo, the swordsman at the end of his tether looking for an honorable death. Rentaro Mikuni is Counselor Saito, the man charged with managing the daily goings-on at the Iyi manor. Saito is suspicious of Tsugumo's motives, as it has become commonplace for ronin to show up at rich homes claiming to be seeking a place to die but really looking to extort money from a well-to-do family who doesn't want the public disgrace of a dead warrior in their front yard. This scam began honestly, when one of the many samurai left in the cold by shogunate reform legitimately sought a nice place to spend his last breath. The clan he went to was so impressed by his sincerity, that they gave him a job; those who followed this have been con artists.

In fact, Tsugumo is not the first to come to the Iyi manner seeking this kind of asylum. Several months before, a younger man named Chijiwa (Akira Ishihama) arrived under similar circumstances. Saito and his men doubted his intentions, too, but ultimately, they made him carry out his promise. Chijiwa's tortuous death is the grisliest scenes in the movie, and Saito's detailed explanation of the disembowelment--which we see as an actual flashback--is meant to dissuade Tsugumo from pushing the matter further. The audience may be unsettled by the painful self-immolation (I certainly was), but Tsugumo is not. He insists on going ahead, his desire to die is very real.

Harakiri's twist, however, is that despite his true intentions, Tsugumo has not revealed his full motivation. The former warrior was a father and a grandfather who watched his family's livelihood dwindle as he clung to an unyielding code of honor--one he has decided that others higher up the food chain have not been as dedicated to. His narrative is more entangled in recent events at the Iyi manor than was originally apparent. The reality of what is happening grows more knotted and tragic the deeper Tsugumo draws us in. The movie may be black-and-white, but its often-grotesque tapestry is anything but. The hubris of the Iyi clan is they demanded simplicity because it was easier for them to deal with, even though life is far more complex.

Tatsuya Nakadai is astounding in the lead role. He plays present-day Tsugumo as a man who is staunchly resolute. He quietly commands the room, wresting control from Saito in ways both bold and manipulative. When insisting that the counselor and his retainers continue listening to his story doesn't work, he has other gambits waiting to be played. In the flashbacks, the actor is afforded the opportunity to show his range. Tsugumo's life swings from happiness to heartache, and the unraveling of his confidence is devastating to behold. The performer shows just as much strength in the battle scenes, finding a balance between an old warrior's confidence and his somewhat faulty muscle memory. He is not as strong or as agile as he once was, and Nakadai is careful to show, through gesture and expression, that it's righteous passion that allows this samurai to not just hold his own, but to best his opponents.

Fans of Japanese cinema likely know Nakadai from his work with Akira Kurosawa, including High and Low [review], where he proved himself more than an able co-star next to the great Toshiro Mifune, but also later in life as the unhinged father in Ran [review]. It's an impressive career even before you factor in his previous collaboration with Masaki Kobayashi, the towering epic The Human Condition [review]. Comparing that multi-part drama with this one is a bit like comparing apples and oranges, but they both stand tall as portrayals of individuals pushed as far as they can be pushed. It's a dramatic situation both timeless and timely: when the system fails to protect the people it was created to serve, when those at the upper levels of power forget about individuals that form the basis for their rule, those desperate for justice will find a way to get their due. Not that any victory is clean. Following a harrowing, tension-filled climax, Harakiri has a bitter denouement. The cynical message: if you're going to strike at a snake, you'd best take out the head, or its venom will still have an outlet to poison the world further.

Kobayashi works here from a script by Shinobu Hashimoto. The film is tightly constructed on two different timelines, and the writer makes smart decisions of when to click back and forth between past and present. In some ways, Harakiri is like a mystery. We know, in essence, who killed Chijiwa, but the metaphorical culprit, the source of the misery that led him to the murder scene, still needs to be uncovered. Cinematographer Yoshio Miyajima works in the tight hallways of the palace and even the tighter quarters of Tsugumo's impoverished hovel, to choreograph the narrative and emphasize just how trapped the ronin really is. The courtyard where the suicides take place boxes the victims in, and yet the estate that surrounds them is like a maze. On his climactic dash through the Iyi home, Tsugumo breaks through different walls, each one revealing another layer of the internal bureaucracy. As a metaphor for the lone citizen taking on the system, it's incredibly powerful. What Tsugumo finds there is ultimately hollow, and thus Harakiri is all the more unnerving. If you don't walk away from this movie shaken all the way down to your shoes, I'm not sure you were really watching what was going on.

Criterion first released Harakiri back in 2005 as a two-disc DVD set. As the screengrabs here show, the restoration done back then was impressive enough already, but the high-def Blu-Ray transfer is a thing of beauty. The black-and-white photography is sharper than ever before, with rich, deep detail and incredible textures. Close-ups on the actors in tense moments reveal so much about the pain and fear the characters are suffering just by letting us see the sweat on their brow and the tears in their eyes so vividly.

The new edition also keeps all the extras from the previous set, including an interview between Masaki Kobayashi and Double Suicide-director Masahiro Shinoda (that makes for a fitting duo, if not a depressing double feature). There are also more recent interviews with Nakadai and Hashimoto and a pretty cool poster gallery.

There is a 3D remake of Harakiri on the way, helmed by irascible Japanese madman Takashi Miike. It will be interesting to see how Miike handles the material. I'd have thought him a pretty poor choice for Harakiri--and really, would have been against remaking what is essentially a perfect film--before seeing his masterful redo of the samurai showdown picture 13 Assassins [review]. The concept of ritual suicide certainly has the potential for different avenues of exploration. Let's not forget that just three years after Kobayashi stormed Cannes with Harakiri, bad-boy author Yukio Mishima unleashed his short film Patriotism [review], a film that is just as vivid in its gruesome details but with a decidedly different point of view. Whereas Kobayashi decides that seppuku is an empty gesture given foolishly in deference to an uncaring power structure, Mishima considers it the ultimate expression of fealty to something greater than yourself (for him, Japan). Both films are effective, though ultimately, Kobayashi's is more fulfilling and easily more persuasive.

This disc was provided by the Criterion Collection for purposes of review.

Please Note: The screen captures used here are from the standard-definition DVD released in 2000, not from the Blu-ray edition under review.

PALE FLOWER (Blu-Ray) - #564

"It's so pointless."
"Yeah, it is."

No, that's not the dialogue of two bored teenagers who've just discovered black turtlenecks and Edith Piaf. It's an exchange between a thrill-seeking gambling addict and the yakuza who loves her, the main characters in Pale Flower, Masahiro Shinoda's 1964 portrait of underworld ennui. These are doomed souls on a collision course with one another, an interpersonal big bang that can only spell their tragic end...though, as the poem goes, it's an end that will merely whimper. It's an implosion more than an explosion.

The dual nature of Shinoda's scenario is established from the very first scene. In voiceover, the hardboiled criminal Muraki (Ryô Ikebe, Early Spring [review]) quickly explains that he has only just gotten out of prison after serving three years for killing another man. The whole sordid affair has left Muraki with a particularly nihilistic worldview. He took a man's life, but the rest of the world carried on. Life is indifferent to those who live it. Yet, the moment that Muraki lays eyes on Saeko (Mariko Kaga, Snow Country, Only on Mondays) in the gambling den, the gangster endeavors to change her fate and keep her safe. He is an ex-con white knight, swooping in to protect the fair maiden. He jumps in the game, interrupting her losing streak by starting one of his own. If only one of them can win this bet, it might as well be her.

The pair develops a relationship after that, though it's one that is never sexual. Saeko sees Muraki as her entry into higher-stakes games. Whatever life she has outside of the late-night gambling, she keeps it separate. We can guess she's probably from a respectable family well before Muraki accidentally runs into her with her friends. This is a girl of privilege with a yen for danger. She ponders bigger bets hoping that they will give her even more of a jump, she races other drivers on the highway, and naturally, when she hears the half-Chinese gangster Yoh (Takashi Fujiki) is a junkie, she becomes fascinated by him and his deadly habit. Muraki, resigned to the role as the "older brother," warns her against going on the dope, but even he knows it's pointless.

Because, though he may forget, it's all pointless. Symbolically, Muraki is a man whose time is limited. The lover who waited for him all these years (Chisako Hara) is our first indicator that the clock is ticking--in her case, quite literally. Her father owns a clock shop, and when Muraki returns to her, the persistent metronomic clatter serves as soundtrack to their lovemaking. This has been the woman's jail while Muraki has been behind bars; her life has been in stasis. Her devotion has also been a waste. When a fellow from her office offers to marry her, Muraki tells her to go for it, to take the normal life while she can. Perhaps he's trying to save her, too, but of anyone, she seems most aware of the troublesome mortality that defines their romance.

Indeed, Muraki is going to get a reminder that his position is tenuous in the very next scene. A friend of the man he killed tries to take revenge, even though the rival gangs have formed a truce since Muraki went inside. Ironically, Muraki takes the younger man (Isao Sasaki) under his wing after this, prepping him for greater things. Shinoda underscores this fateful first meeting with a subtle orchestral version of the Elvis Presley song "It's Now or Never." Live for the moment, Muraki, it's all you have.

Music plays an important role in Pale Flower. Shinoda and composer Toru Takemitsu draw on a variety of influences to establish the story's various moods. At one of the more crucial nights out, the game where Muraki realizes that Yoh is a threat, the soundtrack adopts more traditional Japanese sounds. Dissonant horns and chaotic percussion, combined with the ambient noise of the game itself, create a feverish mood, reducing the players to their most primal equation: Adam, Eve, and the Snake. This will be reinforced in the film's climactic scene, when the operatic events demand operatic music. Shinoda has given us various hints throughout Pale Flower that a shift toward more Western ethics and behavior is occurring, and here, besides, the music, the church-like decorations emphasize the particular moral landscape of this scenario. Muraki hopes to dissuade Saeko from chasing her various metaphorical dragons any further and simultaneously defeat his rival by showing her the one thing he believes Yoh can't conjure. In a way, it is the ultimate sacrifice he can make: he isn't literally giving up his life for her, but he is giving up his freedom, which itself will consign him to a kind of walking death. Still breathing, but exiled to purgatory.

It's a gamble, but then, the whole of life is a gamble. The game of luck that Saeko and Muraki play is one of pure chance. The players randomly draw hanafuda, colorful dominoes with pictures on them, and place wagers on whether or not they will draw a match to the domino played by the lead gambler. It's a conundrum we regularly take in life: if I put myself out there, will this other person match up, will we be compatible. For Saeko, Muraki is a new kind of danger. She tells him at one point, "I'm so bored with life," and she uses him to find fresh excitement. What he sees in her glass-eyed expression is something only he knows. Maybe it's a kindred spirit, maybe it's himself as he once was, making her his second chance. Regardless, he's foolish to think it will make any difference. She so much as warns him. "Whatever happens, I forgive myself," she says. In other words, she lives for her own sake first, and whatever she has to do to bring herself whatever pleasure or contentment she can find, she'll do it, anyone else be damned.

It's enough to make you wonder who the real nihilist is here! Pale Flower's philosophical landscape is as desolate as any American film noir, and its actual landscape is shot with just as much of an emphasis on style and shadow. The black-and-white photography of Shinoda's regular cameraman, Masao Kosugi, plays with light and dark, shooting down narrow corridors, highlighting the distance between the dens of inequity and common life outside. Much of the action takes place on location, and so we also get stunning images of 1960s Tokyo, which at times can seem as unreal and dreamy as the paranoid nightmare Muraki has midway through the picture. This glimpse inside his sleeping mind is the only time we see Muraki truly unhinged; otherwise, Ryô Ikebe plays him as stoic and contemplative. His exterior expression is his most fundamental weapon, he can never let his true feelings show. In this, Mariko Kaga is his equal. The actress is just as strong at establishing a fictional mask--though she is also allowed brief bursts of devilishness. At one point, just before her high-speed drag race, the pair laughs together; after the race, she laughs alone, and it has a completely different pitch. It only grows darker later, when her giggle turns a sexual charade into a humiliating experience for Muraki.

In the end, Muraki is an anti-hero who can't escape his destiny. Whatever he thought he was going to accomplish turns to dust, his endeavors are as pointless as his denials. Arguably, his exile is far less of a punishment than it might seem, because being cut off from everything means he doesn't know how colossal his failure may actually be. That's the haunting coda of Pale Flower: awareness of life's absurdity brings no relief. Unlike Western existentialism, where one hurls oneself into the abyss in order to transcend it, the deeper Muraki peers into the blackness, the more it consumes him. He pushed his rock up the hill, rolled it over the other side, and now he only wants to get it back.

For a complete rundown on the special features, read the full review at DVDTalk.

Screen captures are from the original 2003 Home Vision Entertainment DVD-release, not the Blu-Ray.