•
Rating: By Kimitake Hiraoka aka Mishima Yukio, in the '80s/'90s I read a few books, the first was “Confessions of a Mask” (attracted more than anything by the title) written at just twenty-four years old, “The Temple of the Golden Pavilion” from which Paul Joseph Schrader extracts pages even in his movie, and a few others of which I don’t recall the title.
In this film produced by two other notable directors like “George Walton Lucas Jr.“ (see “American Graffiti” from '73 and “Star Wars” from '77 just to name a couple of titles) and Francis Ford Coppola (see “The Godfather” from '72 and “Apocalypse Now” from '79 just to mention two), Schrader narrates in two hours the last day of life and death of Mishima who was a poet, writer, actor, director, and more, delving into his past dominated since childhood by an overly possessive but intellectually formative grandmother, and then continuing in his novelistic and theatrical activity all tied together by four chapters, culminating in that suicide (seppuku) planned and carried out in front of hundreds of people including military and journalists, after barricading himself with four other paramilitaries inside a military base in Tokyo, not before having given a speech from the terrace filled with pro-patriotic themes in favor of the emperor, completing his plan to unite Art with Life through the Action of his samurai-like vision, all well accompanied by the music of the versatile composer Philip Glass.
Loading comments slowly
