Death By Bamboo: A Review of Hara Kiri

Seppuku (切腹), or Hara Kiri to Western audiences, has been hailed as the quintessential masterpiece of Japanese post-war director Kobayashi Masaki, and also one of the greatest samurai movies of all time. The film was released by Shochiku Studios, presented in 2.35:1 aspect ratio and black and white, in the fall of 1962 and immediately captured the attention and imagination of critics and audiences domestically and abroad.

It won the Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1963. It is a masterfully executed movie, with the top actors and producers of the time. Kobayashi collaborated with writer Hashimoto Shinobu, the screenwriter behind Golden Age classics like Rashomon, Seven Samurai, and Ikiru, to make this 133 minute critique of samurai culture and feudalistic society. At first glance, many audiences would classify Seppuku as a samurai movie through and through, on level with other jidai-geki (period dramas) that examined bushido (way of the warrior) and how the samurai lived by it. Critics and scholars of Japanese film, however, would disagree. Instead of the normal chanbara (violent, without much plot or character development), renown film historian Donald Richie described Seppuku as an “anti-samurai” film for the negative critique of authority and the overrated “way of the warrior.” According to Richie and other Asian film scholars, including Joan Mellen, Kobayashi’s films all share the common thread of resisting authority and the powerless individual rebelling against the corrupt, organized group. Kobayashi was particularly interested in breaking down the exalted tradition of bushido, and exposing the faulted men who built it up in the first place. He overturns the force of bushido and its pretentiousness and wastefulness by depicting the fallacies constructed and maintained by the over-zealous elites that keep up the status quo at the expense of the individual at the bottom of the pecking order. Kobayashi shows the illusion of heroism and sacrifice with a smart ronin and a group of conceited, and by no means perfect, leaders in the samurai class.

The film opens with the ronin Tsugumo Hanshiro, played by the forceful Nakadai Tatsuya, asking to commit honorable seppuku (death by disembowelment) in the forecourt of the Edo residence of the powerful Iya Clan. From the chief retainer at the house, Saito Kageyu, played by Mikuni Rentaro, the audience learns in flash back of a younger samurai coming to them not long before asking for the same privilege. This samurai, Chijiwa Motome (Ishihama Akira) was from the same disbanded Fukushima Clan as Tsugumo, and was quickly granted his wish of suicide, if forcefully and unnecessarily painfully. Saito also prepares to let Tsugumo die in the front court, but proceedings are halted when Tsugumo requests three particularly skilled Iya samurai to be his seconds. None of the men are present, and while servants look for them, Tsugumo relates his story of how he came to Edo. It turned out that he had known Chijiwa since he was young and had taken him as a son-in-law. Having no money to support his family, Chijiwa had gone to the Iya Clan to try to extort money from them. Of course, he was unsuccessful. Tsugumo set out on a quest of revenge; he defeated and took the top knots of the three samurai (the same three he requested) that had forced Chijiwa to commit seppuku, and then went to the Iya Clan itself with the intention of exposing their worst lies and carefully hidden secrets, and then killing himself. He fights off many members of the house single handedly, and eventually stabs himself to death. Saito, angry and confused at his best samurai, orders their immediate death and carefully covers up the carnage of the day to report to his Daimyo lord. Through his curious characters and plot twists, Kobayashi attacks the worst lies and traits that characterized feudal society and how the aggressively oppressive group squashed the individual voice out of existence.

Seppuku is a quintessential work of Kobayashi’s, for its contextual analysis of the worst parts of greater Japanese society and its technical inventiveness that sets it apart from other samurai, and indeed Japanese, movies. This film is about the lies and fallacies that are carefully hidden by the institution at the expense of the individual; the heavy organized group oppresses those at that bottom by pretending they have everything of importance, while in reality, they have everything to lose. Tsugumo is the oppressed party in this movie, representing the dissident individual disgusted with the treatment of himself and of his son-in-law Chijiwa at the hands of the pretentious and hollow Iya Clan. The Iya Clan, therefore, is the institution that Kobayashi seeks to subvert and undermine.

Kobayashi uses the recurring symbol of samurai armor to symbolize, not only the Iya Clan that practically worships it, but all organized states and mainstream societies. The armor has a hard, showy exterior that protects and hides the terrible secret inside: emptiness. Kobayashi has multiple long shots of the armor seated in its full grandeur, and also tight close-ups, where the mask fills the whole frame; the empty eye sockets are lidded in shadow, as if withdrawn so that no one will discover its faulty interior. By the end of the film, it has been knocked off its lofty perch by Tsugumo in the course of his fight, but after his death, servants carefully returned it to its original stateliness. Kobayashi’s message is clear: the oppressed may fight and successfully make a point, but the institution is simply too big for any one man to bring down, and so will continue on as usual. The cycle continues, as it covers up the lies the individual exposed and makes a promise to work harder so that no one will discover them again.

If one could describe in one word the technical film elements of this film, the word would be “sharp.” There is little in this film, including the music and camera work that could be described as soft, harmonious, or delicate. Kobayashi and his cinematographer, Miyajima Yoshio, make use of unconventional, more Western-style techniques that heighten the intensity and emotion of every scene, leaving painfully little up to the imagination. The fighting and death scenes are particularly well done in this way, and also are used to show stunning realizations and emotions by Rentaro and Ishihama (Saito and Chijiwa, respectively). Camera shots are tense, fast moving, and off-balance, often making use of the off-center Dutch angle that emote fear, pain, anger, and sadness. Even the cuts are short and jarring, and while there are some long takes, there are no soft dissolves or wipes to separate one scene from another. There are many close ups on the characters’ faces that fill the whole frame, demonstrating exceptional facial acting by the actors.The camera is usually in high focus, taking in every detail of the actors’ faces, from the roots of their hairline, to the pores and sweat on their skin, to the obvious expressions of their feelings. What is curious is that Nakadai rarely gets his own close-up. He never shows the kind of emotion that Rentaro and Ishihama must be credited for. His character is somehow transcendent of that kind of weakness and commands an aura that instead tells the camera to stay back. The zooming close up of his face at the beginning, after hearing of Chijiwa’s fate, becomes unnecessary at his blank and unaffected expression. What he is not exempt from, however, is the expert use of the black and white contrast. Intense lighting throws highlights and shadows into deep contrast, emphasizing every detail. The contrast of black (or dark grey that represents crimson red) on white is beautiful in this film, but becomes horribly real in the scenes of seppuku, while objects in shades of light grey fade unimportantly into the back ground. It is interesting that Kobayashi, making a movie about lies and fake constructions of identity and behavior, is using such realistic techniques that give the sense of intimacy with the camera subjects, whether the audience likes it or not.

The sound, as well, is exceptional and also displays notes of tension and emotion. The dialogue is crisp and blunt, all spoken in the deep husky voices of the nearly completely male cast. Nakadai helms the movie with the deepest, most intimidating voice of them all, showing a strong force of character and will. The sounds of steel on steel are clipped and brief, but resonate loudly in the audience’s ears. Takemitsu Toru’s score for this film suits it impeccably, using what sounds like traditional Japanese drum and string instruments; the sharp, percussive sounds often signal the painful realizations by the characters and usually accompanies a change of frame or tense close up. It does not help to alleviate the stress of the characters and audience, but rather seeks to drive it still higher.

Kobayashi is a champion of the underdog, particularly if he stands alone against a group all bent on his destruction. Kobayashi uses his actors and camerawork to their absolute highest potential to illustrate his points of the individual versus the group. The painful scene of Chijiwa’s suicide is just one of these examples that show the individual’s plight. Chijiwa’s head is bent, as if resigned to his fate, while the high-seated Saito looks down on him. Chijiwa is surrounded by dozens of hostile samurai, all facing him, ready to witness his untimely death.

Later, when Tsugumo is seated in the same spot, Kobayashi uses high angles looking down on the courtyard from the house’s roof, showing Tsugumo’s lone dark frame encircled by the same horde of dangerous men. Again, Tsugumo seems to be above such intimidation, and keeps his head high and defiant. In both these cases, the audience can see the weight and strength of the group pressing in from all sides on the individuals. Kobayashi fits some hope for the individual in to the fight scene between Tsugumo and the Iya retainers. One man is ultimately powerless against the sheer weight of the institution, so Tsugumo’s fighting style is one that uses no power of his own, but uses the opposing group’s own forces against them. Tsugumo’s valiant last stand involves him throwing the hallowed suit of armor to the floor, not before using it as a shield against his opponents. His final act of seppuku is one of a man cornered by overwhelming numbers, and cruelly cut short by the desperate use of firearms on the part of the Iya samurai. The Iya samurai, themselves are unremarkable (apart from the three already shamed and dispatched) and move in unison against Tsugumo, like one big breathing animal, relying on their strength in numbers more than actual skill. In both these scenes, the group oppresses the individual and drives him out of relevance and importance for the sake of their own maintained dominance.

Perhaps the most important scene in the movie is the last one, when Saito is writing a report of the day’s events for his Lord Bennosuke. Interspersed with close ups of Saito’s face are shots of faceless servants clearing the evidence of the carnage and mistakes. They wipe blood off the walls, throw away the shameful severed topknots of their top samurai, and pick up the dissembled suit of armor. Saito’s voice over describes the woven tale of lies to cover up the dead and disgraced Iya samurai, and the “unremarkable” death of ronin Tsugumo Hanshiro. The final shot of the film is the empty face of the armor’s mask, maintaining the façade of indefatigability and continuing to hide the emptiness and lies that fill its interior. The last lingering questions are these: was Tsugumo successful? In Kobayashi’s mind, the fallacies of the organized regime can be discovered and resisted if one is of strong enough mind and heart, like Tsugumo. Thus, he accomplished what any single person could hope to do, in discovering the biggest falsehoods by the institution and challenging it directly. Kobayashi never wanted Tsugumo to bring down the entire Iya Clan single handedly because that would be unrealistic and, worse, uninteresting.

Kobayashi Masaki’s rightly named masterpiece, Seppuku, is demonstrative of his thematic style in the clear criticism and undermining of authority and crushing oppressiveness against individual dissidents. He carefully exposes the hidden lies that hold up the most powerful institutions. Through his expert use of technical resources and acting, he crafts a film of outstanding social content and artistic expression. Symbols and attention arresting camera work addresses the issue of the flawed organized group and having those same fallacies pointed out by a singularly brave character, and the subsequent silencing of him by force, only to rebuild and continue on as though nothing of consequence had happened. Seppuku is truly an “anti-samurai” film, for the unconventional and thoroughly non-traditional ideas and elements ingrained in it, but because of this, is all the more important to the samurai genre for the demonstration of its favorite supercilious tropes.

Works Cited and Links:

Eggert, Brian. "The Definitives - Harakiri (1962)." Deep Focus Review. 3 Sept. 2009. Web. 13 Nov. 2011. http://www.deepfocusreview.com/reviews/harakiri.asp

Introduction by Donald Richie. Criterion Collection “Hara Kiri” DVD. New York, NY: Nov. 2005.

Mellen, Joan. “Hara Kiri: Kobayashi and History.” Criterion Collection “Hara Kiri” DVD Booklet. New York, NY: 2005.

Peterson, S. "Japanese Bushido." Japanese Bushido. Web. 13 Nov. 2011. http://www.japanesebushido.org/

"Samurai Cinema." Wikipedia. Web. 14 Nov. 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samurai_cinema

“Seppuku.” Festival De Cannes. Web. 13 Nov. 2011. http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/3126/year/1963.html