Harakiri: How Did I Not See This Sooner
Twelve years after his acclaimed piece Rashomon, Shinobu Hashimoto follows a similar chord with Harakiri while vastly improving on his previous work. I would venture to call both these pieces examples of reflective storytelling. Harakiri, like Rashomon, begins at a point close to the film’s climax and then tells several different stories that led to the characters’ current predicament. Harakiri was brilliant in this jigsaw way of storytelling. Each individual vignette was equally engaging and all logically drew towards the ultimate battle and conclusion. Everything that seemed disjointed is slowly revealed to be one story of the inequality of perceived honor.
But this brilliant script was not on its own, Masaki Kobayashi’s style of directing was decades ahead of its time. Drastic angles and rapid movement of the camera (additional shout-out to Yoshio Miyajima’s cinematography) make this incredibly engaging. It has a serious leg up on modern action films. There is never a stagnant moment. Wherever the camera goes feels necessary and the large variety of shots played with keep the audience interested. The choreography too was brilliant, in the final climax nothing felt unrealistic and the individual smaller fights within it did not feel staged. Men were fighting for their lives and fearful of their potential deaths, no matter how resolute they remained.
Tatsuya Nakadai stuns as Tsugumo Hanshirō. His eyes alone tell his disenchantment with our world from the start. He comes to the Li clan ready to die. But his choice of death is his alone and he goes into every scene with all the power. Additionally, Tetsurō Tamba gives off a brilliant performance as master swordsman Omodaka Hikokuro. His military-like stance and gaze being the only thing nearly matching that of Tsugumo.
Harakiri is an absolute epic in scale. It is a film that anyone who wishes to understand film should see. This has instantly bolstered itself for me as one of the most marvelous pieces of writing and performance of all time.
