Harakiri

Harakiri, made in 1962 by Masaki Kobayashi and starring Tatsuya Nakadai (he of numerous feudal Japan titles by Kurosawa and others), is a dark look at the samurai code of bushido and the scars it inflicted on the collective Japanese soul. It is neither a glorification of the warrior nor a swashbuckling adventure film. By targeting the ceremony of seppuku - popularly known as harakiri – Kobayashi delivers a gut-wrenching indictment of human corruption and self-deception.

The samurai enters the temple and bows to the witnesses and walks slowly to a raised platform in front of the altar. He then sits in seiza on the altar with the Kaishaku (the second) crouching on his left side. An official comes forward bearing a stand holding the shoto (a short sword, nine and a half inches in length). The samurai receives the shoto and reverently raises it to his head with both hands, placing it in front of him. Allowing his robe to slip down to his hips and remaining naked to the waist, carefully according to custom he tucks his sleeves under his knees to prevent himself from falling backward. (According to custom, a noble Japanese gentleman should die falling forward.) He then takes the shoto in his hand and stabs himself deeply below the waist on his left side. He draws the blade slowly to the right side and turning it in the wound cuts slightly upwards. The supplicant should never show any facial expression during his self-disembowelment. Drawing the shoto out, he leans forward and offers his neck. At that moment, the Kaishaku, still crouching, stands and severs the head with one swift stroke of his sword.

This is the basic ritual of seppuku. Under the bushido code, any samurai fallen from honor should end his life by this manner. Dishonor could come by various means: defeat in battle, cowardice under fire, loss of position, or loss of one’s topknot (the gathered hair at the top of the warrior’s head). It’s important to note the prohibition of any feeling by the supplicant: in this ultimate act of pain and self-denial, emotion must not stain the purity of the ritual. Humanity is being overcome here, after all. [ed. note: spoilers ahead]

Under the opening titles passes a series of stately tracking shots along the empty corridors and beautifully decorated shoji of a traditional Japanese palace. My first impression was of the soul’s journey to the underworld. The emptiness of those flat surfaces and cold greys and blacks is peaceful but chilling. Whoever lives here is encased in a museum, suffused in beautiful ghosts of a violent past. This is nostalgia for death. When we at last reach the Kamiza, the altar of the warrior gods, the sepulchral form of the samurai in armor sits silently, unmoving and unmoved by human tragedy.

We soon meet the living occupants, the Iyi clan counselor and various other samurai. This is a time of peace, however, and these samurai stay in their finely appointed compound, wear exquisite robes, and keep their swords sheathed. These men are wealthy, powerful, and settled (there are no women in the Iyi clan headquarters, it seems).

Into this austere bastion enters a scruffy, darkly quiet man, a ronin (masterless samurai) named Tsugomo who asks that he be granted the privilege of ending his pitiful life in the witness of fellow-samurai. He is given an interview with the Counselor Saito, who tells him a story as a warning. Samurai, it seems, are increasingly showing up at the gates of rich houses with the same request, knowing that in all likelihood they’ll be given a handout and sent on their way. But the Iyi are not like that, Saito tells Tsugomo, recalling the last samurai who asked to be given an audience for harakiri – a young, pathetic and evidently cowardly fellow named Chijiwa – was forced to go through the ritual, after pleading for two days’ respite. Not only that, the disgraced samurai had nothing but bamboo swords in his possession. In this flashback account by the Iyi warlord, Chijiwa is triply disgraced: he never meant to commit suicide, he just wanted charity; he had traded in his swords (a samurai’s soul) for meaningless bamboo blades; and, worst of all, he showed cowardice among his fellows and begged for mercy.

Tsugomo is resolute; “I fully intend to commit suicide,” he tells Saito, who is impressed by his commitment and grants his request. The ceremony is set, the warriors are assembled in the courtyard, Tsugomo is on the mat with the deadly accoutrements around him, and then comes the first surprise. Tsugomo asks for a second of his own choice, an Iyi sword master. As it turns out, the swordsman is not present. Saito tells Tsugomo to choose another. Oddly enough, the second choice swordsman is also found to be indisposed. Once the Iyi learn Tsugomo’s third choice is absent as well, they convene privately: “Clearly he’s up to something.” Their suspicions are confirmed soon enough.

Counselor Saito angrily confronts Tsugomo, who remains quiet, immobile, and opaque. He has a story of his own to tell. Yes, as it happens, he knew the disgraced Chijiwa. Tsugomo’s tale reveals another side of samurai life, one that is not so celebrated. It’s the story of a fall into poverty, sickness and tragedy, yet there is humor and love too. But this story doesn’t move the assembled samurai, whose bloodlust is palpable. Wait, says Tsugomo, who has more to tell them – about those missing swordsmen. Thus is the stage set for the final act of revenge and redemption.

The fact that these decadent samurai are merely cold-hearted, duplicitous bureaucrats is revealed over the course of the film, a slow and stately unfolding which is one of the brilliant aspects of Kobayashi’s work. As a former student of Japanese martial arts, I’m ashamed to admit that I was taken in by the proud, exquisitely decorated façade of the Iyi clansmen and shared their contempt for the young, down-on-his-luck samurai Chijwa who comes to their gate. By the end of Tsugomo’s story, we know of the all-too-human drama behind Chijiwa’s disgrace and Tsugomo’s resolve. These sorts of sweat-and-dirt details are never admitted in the bushido code. To do so would be weakness. Opening to one’s humanity puts a chink in the armor, a blade in the gut. But, as we learn by the end, the proud, well-appointed Iyi clansmen are hiding behind façades of delicate cloth and sharpened steel, living on lies and the vanished honor of a bygone era. By the climax, they are utterly disgraced within their walls, before each other’s eyes. In a final act of bureaucratic deception, the counselor and his men take the necessary steps to keep their obscuring screens of nobility intact – at all costs.

Kobayashi’s treatment of violence is nuanced and masterful. The swordfights have neither the exhilaration nor lightning pacing of the battles in Kurosawa’s Yojimbo and Sanjuro, for instance. In Harakiri’s climactic fight, Kobayashi stages long, excruciating pauses where the viewer might reflect for a moment on the senselessness of it all, not to mention the suffering of those having to go through with it. Chijiwa’s disembowelment, using his own bamboo sword – “This wouldn’t cut tofu!” the Iyi swordsmen laugh – is nearly unbearable to watch. Kobayashi spares us none of the young man’s agony as he tries, again and again, to force the dull blade into his abdomen. The ugly brute assigned to finish him off (a dead ringer for Richard Boone) eggs Chijiwa on cruelly: “Cut sideways! Cut!” The manner in which our impressions of Chijiwa and Tsugomo swing from contempt to sympathy is reminiscent of the multiple points of view presented in Kurosawa’s Rashomon.

The pacing of Harakiri is reminiscent of a martial-arts ritual – slow and stately, punctuated by sudden violence. The tranquil opening is followed by the brutal forced suicide. There follows the long, rambling interlude of Tsugomo’s tale told from his suicide mat, while the suspense mounts. Stillness, ritualized violence, more quietude, and finally, more extreme violence. The fits of bloodletting give way, grudgingly, to the soft humanity at the heart of the story. Tsugomo’s decline is overflowing with tragedy, humor, love, compassion, and tenderness – all that is not present in the Iyi compound and its council of unbendable warlords. They’re clearly uncomfortable taking in Tsugomo’s revelations, especially as he reminds them: “This might be you, tomorrow.” Kobayashi’s message is plain: repression will inevitably give way to an uncontrollable spasm of chaos. Power cannot hold in perpetuity, as the powerful grow decadent and weak. A society built upon the codes of conflict will always return to war for its sustenance.

One doesn’t have to dig far to find the parables in Kobayashi’s film. Antiwar and anti-establishment, Harakiri can be seen as a comment on the Cold War – ’62 was the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Closer to the filmmaker’s heart is the lesson of how rigid, codified, and brutal social behaviors led Japan down the self-immolating path to WWII. The power of dehumanizing protocol reminds us of today’s news, too. The warrior cabal of the Bush administration depends on more than a few constructs based on lies, distortions, and dehumanization. He’s a “war president” who never saw a war, just like the samurai simulacra of Kobayashi’s masterwork.

~ Tom Djll