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A laboratory distillation of the literary life, from frail child to failed insurgent. Yukio Mishima (Ken Ogata) the vortex of contradictions, suspended between the intellectual and the visceral and the ascetic and the voluptuous, just the kindred spirit for Paul Schrader. "My need to transform reality was an urgent necessity," Anderson's If.... colors the structure. The Ozu tyke who builds himself into a muscular lion of the page, whose creations materialize in the flagrant artifice of the narcissistic-reactionary psyche. The Temple of the Golden Pavilion has the stuttering disciple (Yasosuke Bando) fumbling his first lay, the pinnacle of beauty spreads before him only to be torched in slow-mo and pounded by Philip Glass strings. "A strong sense of aesthetics" run to its limits, thus the sculptured beatnik (Kenji Sawada) who meets his match in the elegant demon (Reisen Ri) in Kyoko's House, "the wounds of art" are observed. The ultimate self-portrait in Runaway Horses, the imperial fanatic (Toshiyuki Nagashima) on a mission leading to innards spilled in front of the rising sun. "Our best weapon is purity." Schrader collapses the biopic form to find the Japanese confrère of Travis Bickle, a fair amount of monumental filmmaking is summoned to enlarge the dry thesis. "A boy who wrote bad poetry" and a samurai in his own mind, a shy visitor at the gay bar, a strutting peacock at the gym. Epiphany of Saint Sebastian beefcake, ecstasy of scalpel-brush on torso-canvas. Ichikawa's An Actor's Revenge, Imamura's A Man Vanishes and Oshima's The Ceremony are cited, the shooting of Mishima's own Yukoku is glimpsed. (The dilettante's stab at cinema is merely a rehearsal for his real-life climax, the blade ritualistically pressed against his belly is the final prop in a general's barricaded office.) "The harmony of pen and sword" is the culmination, the morbid sublimity that follows a farcical coup. Cinematography by John Bailey.
--- Fernando F. Croce |