Mishima is actually directed by an American film-maker, Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver) but a film about Yukio Mishima seems too good to pass up. Mishima was a nationalist and founded his own right-wing militia. In 1970, he and three other members of his militia staged an attempted coup d'état when they seized control of a Japanese military base and took the commander hostage, then tried and failed to inspire a coup to restore the Emperor's pre-war powers. Mishima then committed ritual suicide by seppuku.
It's a fascinating history and it feels like it easily could have been very melodramatic and unnecessarily violent in the hands of the wrong director, but Schrader portrays the events with the greatest of respects. Not only does he carefully tell the story and all of its context, but at the same time bringing it to life with fantastic, dreamlike cinematography and all sorts of playful ways of using his camera. The films production designer, Eiko Ishioka, was tracked down by Schrader after the team had seen her work on the Japanese poster for Apocalypse Now (1979), and had this to say about the work on Mishima:
"It would be like the sets themselves were characters, as though they were actors, and they would challenge the real actors. So that when the sets and the actors came together, they’d set off a spark and a new kind of energy."
I just really adore how this movie looks, and Eiko's idea of making each of the films segment's be filmed in what looks like theatrical sets gives the film rich, numerous personalities. I could post screenshots from it all day long, but I'll try to refrain from that. Superb film about a maybe somewhat less-known piece of Japanese history.
Mishima could be called a samurai film set in modern days, with how Yukio tried his best to honor the traditions and ways of the bushido, so in the end when his crushing defeat was unavoidable he also chose to die like a samurai.
Genre: Biography/Drama
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