Review of Harakiri (1919) by Lanning : — 23 Sep 2007

Seppuku I don't know if this is the best samurai project ever brought to screen, but I'm willing to bet that it is right up there. Actually billed as an anti-samurai film, this bare-bones black & white drama cuts to the core of the samurai way of life in an examination of the validity of the samurai code.

Although the code ultimately stands up to close scrutiny, albeit unsteadily, it is finally only through revisionist manipulation that it does hold up at all. In short, the way of the samurai, or bushido, finally just survives this anti-samurai treatment, teetering upon a shaky foundation made up of lies perpetrated through sheer force of authoritarian pronouncement and will.

This not only demonstrates how the myth and mystique of bushido survive, but it also gives good insight into the way those in power can turn fact into accepted self-serving fiction. As an aside, while watching Harakiri, Eastwood's High Plains Drifter, an American anti-western that performs a similar function of undercutting the perceived code, the collective bravado, of the gun-slinging West, kept coming to mind.

That's another one I must watch again.