This is a beautiful black and white version of Yukio Mishima's short story, titled Patriotism in English. It depicts the love suicide of a Japanese lieutenant (of the pre-WWII Imperial Army) and his wife. Artfully staged and photographed, it was filmed without sound. There is an audio track of Wagner's Liebestod, but occasional dialogue is shown only as moving lips, and the basic story is conveyed by hand-written scrolls. The silence has a cool, distancing effect that plays well against the core violence of the piece. The lieutenant's hara-kiri is shown graphically--predicting Mishima's own death some four years later. The choice of the Libestod was a bit obvious as a bridge between Mishima's romantic fantasies and those of his equally theatrical German predecessor. This, and the predictable blood spatters, lend a touch of kitsch to this otherwise powerful film. I ordered this from Play-Asia.com, and got a two disc set. Both show the entire film, one with Japanese writing, and one with English scrolls substituted.
Review of Patriotism
