Review of Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985) by Kenneth L — 24 Sep 2011

Well, it's kind of a cliche thing to say, but this seriously is a movie like no other. Even the circumstances of its production were highly unusual: it's a movie written and directed by the American Paul Schrader, but shot in Japan with all Japanese actors and crew members, entirely in Japanese, and executive produced by Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas. And all of that doesn't really even begin to suggest just how weird the movie is.

The movie kind of tells the story of the life of the famous Japanese writer Yukio Mishima. To say that Mishima was a character is an understatement: he wrote 35 novels, hundreds of stories, some plays; he acted in and directed movies; he was a bisexual; and he started his own private army that was manically devoted to restoring the supreme authority of the Japanese emperor. Obviously, he was a little crazy. The movie tells his life on three different levels: naturalistic scenes from the last (and most dramatic) day of Mishima's life, black-and-white scenes of his memories, and hyper-stylized condensations of the plots of three of his novels. It's a very complicated structure, but it is disciplined and it works.

Ken Ogata plays Mishima as an adult; his performance is restrained and effective. Tons of other Japanese actors I hadn't heard of and probably never will hear of again fill out all the other various parts of the movie, and they're all good.

The movie is a visual masterpiece. The scenes that represent parts of Mishima's novels are filmed in extremely intense colors, with expressionistic set design. There are lots of unforgettable images and shots in those scenes. Their highly aestheticized approach makes the realism of the present-day scenes more engrossing than they would otherwise be. The musical score is by the legendary Philip Glass, who really turned the portentousness up to 11 for this one. If you want to see filmmaking at its most mannered and intellectual, see this movie.