Mansur Ahmed

I’m not sure if it’s fair to call the great Yukio Mishima crazy. He was definitely an intensely charismatic figure who broadened his horizons to encompass as many facets of cultural literacy as his time allowed. By the end of his life, or at the time he chose to end it, Mishima had written 40 novels, 18 plays, 20 books of short stories, 20 books of essays, one libretto, and a film. That his oeuvre consisted of deep insight into the elements of what makes us human only boggles me to comprehend what had happened to him that lead to his self-imposed doom. Despite his commitment to the Bushido, I cannot understand the force driving him to his death when his fertile mind I imagine still had much to offer. I doubt it was boredom or even a lack of satisfaction. Though his sexuality has been a subject of much speculation, Mishima was still happily married with two young children. In the breathtaking film, Mishima: A Life In Four Chapters, Paul Schrader embarks on a complex examination about the statements Mishima was trying to make and attempts to answer these questions. He doesn’t answer them with answers though. It’s not that simple with Mishima. Schrader’s intricately structured film rather blurs the line between Mishima’s life and Mishima’s art. He slowly shows us that maybe Mishima saw no distinction between the two and that his existence was just another tool for him, like pen and paper, to express his art. Or more so, Mishima saw his life as his magnum opus and the graphic violence of seppuku was the most effective conclusion he arrived at for his greatest artistic accomplishment.

I don’t think there is another film like this one. Schrader divides his narrative into four chapters. Each chapter is interspersed with flashbacks from Mishima’s early life in black and white, the present documenting his last day, and richly filmed sequences from three of his novels. All of this together creates a carefully structured dichotomy of Mishima’s personality, politics, and literature. The most intriguing aspect of the film are the scenes from his books. Even though these are the parts that have not actually occurred, like the flashbacks and his last day, they give us the best insight into who Yukio Mishima really was. They are shot with exaggerated mise en scen, using costumes, set design, and color in a powerfully theatrical manner. We soon realize this is the way Mishima wanted the world to be and consequently how he reserved himself to view it.

The musical score by Philip Glass, which is probably one of the greatest film scores ever composed, complements the visuals with a structure that is equally as complex as Schrader’s. For the flashbacks, Glass employs a string quartet. For the scenes from Mishima’s literature, the soundtrack uses a string orchestra and synthesizers. As for Mishima’s final day, arguably the most disturbing portions of the movie, there is a full symphonic orchestra. The film is in Japanese, but it also contains an off-screen English narration by Roy Scheider. He recites his lines with a kind of brusque cynicism and awareness that once again brings Mishima’s sanity into question. Regardless of whether or not he was crazy, we know he was not confused. Mishima had a clear picture, at least in his mind, of what he intended his life to stand for.

As far as the rest of the world’s perception of Mishima’s final statement, Schrader does his best to make it clear to us without romanticizing his larger than life story. It would have been easy to create a commercial film, sensationalized with controversy for controversy’s sake, but Paul Schrader exercises a great deal of control of the subject matter and makes choices to embellish the ideas rather than disturb us with graphic imagery. The moment where Mishima performs his ritual suicide, there isn’t a lot of blood or melodramatic angles to accentuate the graphical nature of the act. The conception of the act itself is more unnerving to realize than it is to see. So was Yukio Mishima insane? Maybe looking at how his life transpired from an external point of view, it’s simple to make that submission. Seeing it under the microscope of Paul Schrader’s film, Mishima was not a personality that could be defined with such absolutes as sane or insane. He sure was a strange fellow and I imagine only he could answer the question for us. He would probably arrive at the conclusion he’s the sane one and it’s the world that’s insane.