Harakiri is, as of writing this, the highest rated movie on Letterboxd. For good reason, it’s a gorgeous, thought-provoking film that has a lot to say about the world.
I think most people who write about the movie will focus on events in the context of when they occurred. By that, I mean they’ll look at the story as critiquing Japan in 1600. I’m going to argue that it’s actually critiquing Japan of the 1940s, 50s, and 60s.
Harakiri Was About Modern Japan
It’s not like I have a doctorate in Japanese History. But a few years back, I read a lot of Kenzaburō Ōe, one of Japan’s three winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature. And one thing he discussed in great detail was the pivot that occurred when Japan surrendered in World War II. Oe actually wrote about this whole experience in a famous article for the New York Times. It has the best title. “The Day the Emperor Spoke in a Human Voice”.
Oe describes how he grew up in a small settlement in the forest of a remote valley and how it shattered everything he knew when the Emperor’s voice came across the radio. Forgive me if the sampled portion is a bit lengthy, but I love Oe’s writing so much and I’m hoping you’ll enjoy it too and read the whole article (maybe a novel of his or two…). But it also sets the stage for my main point.
- And to the waiting crowd the radio crackled the Emperor’s words, words that clearly were being spoken by a human being. The strange intonation was unfamiliar to me, but it was unmistakably a human voice. If someone in the valley had reported having heard Oshikome and Meisuke [local folklore characters] speaking in a human voice, the tall tale would certainly have delighted me….
- But the Emperor speaking to us in a human voice was beyond imagining in any reverie. The Emperor was a god, the authority of the nation, the organizing principle of reality. The military and the police, our system of social classes—the Emperor as a god was at the source of all things. And all the laws and systems under our Constitution had erected hard, high barriers of reality to keep the Emperor at a distance from us. We had even prayed at our shrines for victory in war to the Emperor who was a god. And the “August True Reflection” of the Emperor, His photograph, reproduced in large numbers, was installed in the alcove of honor at all our national schools. In case of fire, the principal was obliged to risk his life if necessary to carry the imperial portrait to safety first.
- This Emperor introduced very real menace—bliss to some, perhaps—to our daily lives as children. The teacher would call out to us: “What would you do if His Majesty commanded you to die?” The correct answer: “I would die; I would cut open my belly and die!” A little late with this shouted reply, I once earned myself a beating. My hesitation was the product of a forlorn dialogue with myself. How could the Emperor know about a youth in a valley surrounded by a dense forest on this remote island? To what purpose would His Majesty command one grimy boy to die by hara-kiri?
- …. It felt as if the Emperor—and the Empress—who had governed the “picture of the world” had quite lost their power.
The Emperor’s radio broadcast happened on August 15, 1945. And everything in the country quickly changed. For centuries, Japan had been about tradition and hierarchy. The individual did not matter. But they had just lost a war to a nation founded on “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness….” America now occupied the country and it had a democratic constitution.
How could the art not reflect such upheaval?
Many of Japan’s greatest films came out in the 50s and 60s, the decades immediately reacting to postwar shift in culture. Ugetsu, Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Sansho the Bailiff, Godzilla, Late Spring, Ikiru, Tokyo Story, Sword of Doom, The Human Condition Trilogy, and Harakiri. To this day, you still see this reckoning between past and present, obedience and self-interest, across manga, anime, video games, and film.
Many of these works use Japan’s past as a means to comment on the present and future. And Harakiri is the perfect example of that.
The House Of Iyi’s Samurai Armor
Harakiri opens with this awe-inspiring, honorific display of the House of Iyi’s ancient samurai armor. Smoke fills the frame, seemingly out of nowhere, adding a sense of mysticism and power to the armor’s presence in this pitch black space. It’s as definitive as it is infinite.
The movie ends with another shot of the armor. Except, now, there is no smoke. The room is fully lit. The difference in the cinematography and mise-en-scene reflects the fact that the viewer, having watched the movie up to this point, should have a new perspective on what the armor represents. At the start, we saw it as a symbol of power. At the end, we’re supposed to understand that symbol was based on a false perception, and the armor actually represents a lie.
That’s why Hanshirō’s final stand progresses from the courtyard, through the building, to the armor room. His whole character journey is exposing the House of Iyi for the honorless liars that they are. They say they uphold the high-standards of samurai tradition, but it’s all propaganda.
Look at how the duel ends. No one can best Hanshiro in the swordfight. When he picks up the armor, it symbolizes how he’s the one who truly embodies the samurai ethos. And then what happens? More Iyi warriors arrive. But they don’t have swords. They have rifles. These Western artifacts. Instead of dying to bullets, Hanshiro throws down the armor and does the traditional samurai thing—commits harakiri.
With everything we’ve talked about in mind, pay attention to the final dialogue:
- Minion: Hanshiro Tsugumo has been killed, Counselor.
- Counselor: And our casualties? What were the casualties among our men?
- M: Masakatsu Sugita, Sobei Uemura, Ichiro Shinmen, Uemon Yoshioka—four dead. Eight more seriously wounded.
- C: The ronin from Hiroshima, Hanshiro Tsugumo, committed harakiri. All our own men died of illness. The House of Iyi has no retainers who could be felled or wounded by some half-starved ronin. Former retainer of the Fukushima Clan, Hanshiro Tsugumo, committed harakiri honorably, according to his wish. All our men died of illness. Their deaths have nothing to do with Tsugumo’s. Furthermore, we cannot allow any more to die of illness. See that the wounded are treated immediately.
The Counselor narrates from his written account of what happened:
- The former retainer of the Fukushima Clan, Hanshiro Tsugumo, died by harakiri at 6:00 in the evening. His speech and behavior had been somewhat erratic. Many of those present felt he showed signs of derangement. Furthermore, it has become clear that when another former retainer of the Fukushima Clan, one Motome Chijiwa, asked to commit harakiri in January of this year, we did not err in our chosen response. Word of the martial rigor of this house echoed throughout Edo. In the present case too, word of our resolute handling spread across the city before two days were out. As a result, on the third day, in a formal session at Edo Castle, Lord Doi took the occasion to confer words of praise upon our young master Bennosuke as follows: “At peace, yet ever vigilant. Let the House of Iyi continue to embrace this principle, and your fortunes are sure to prosper for ages to come.” The 16th day of May, 1630.
As that final speech plays out, we witness an Iyi cleaning crew disposing of the evidence of Hanshiro’s final stand. They restore the visual appearance of the house. But we know it’s a lie. We know what really happened. The same way we know the Counselor’s account of events is a lie. But history will remember the Counselor’s fiction. And that’s why, at the very end, the smoke starts billowing around the armor. The perception of it as this meaningful thing will resume.
What the viewer experiences by watching Harakiri is similar to what Kenzaburo Oe and the entire nation of Japan experienced when the Emperor Hirhito spoke in a human voice. He was not a god. Like the Wizard of Oz, he had worn a suit of armor that made him seem more powerful than he was. That facade had lasted for generations, despite evidence to the contrary, because those with power manipulated information, just like we see in Harakiri. Having the famed samurai clan resort to rifles to win a sword fight was just such a perfect, perfect choice.
Also, I think Watchman actually takes a lot from Harakiri. Hanshiro is the Rorschach whose pursuit of the truth makes him a liability for those in charge. They sacrifice him to maintain order. But part of his work remains behind. In Watchmen, it’s Rorschach’s diary. In Harakiri, it’s the top-knot Hanshiro had taken from a premier Iyi swordsman.
Masaki Kobayashi Explains Harakiri
After I write an explanation, I think it’s fun to read some interviews from the filmmaker and try to see if my interpretation matches their intentions. If I’m right, great. If I’m wrong, it’s a learning experience. I never sneakily go back to adjust or change my analysis.
Alright, I found an interview Peter Grilli did with Masaki Kobayashi back in 1993. It’s on a random blog.
- Kobayashi: All of my pictures, from a certain point on, are concerned with resisting entrenched power. In a way, The Human Condition concerned itself with this larger theme. That’s what Harakiri is about, of course, and Samurai Rebellion, too. I suppose I’ve always challenged authority. This has been true of my own life, including my life in the military. In terms of my opposition to militarism, military organisations. In those days, everything was strictly controlled, certainly not something that we could openly discuss. Finally after the way, there came a time when we could directly address these issues….
- We wanted to express our opposition to feudalism. That was the main point. But there was also the question of the deception of history; that an incident of such significance had taken place while remaining unrecorded in official history, as though all were calm and nothing had ever happened; that is the deceit of history. Perhaps that was the larger theme….
- Interviewer: In your opinion, has the postwar Japanese mentality changed significantly from the prewar Japanese mentality or spirit?
- Kobayashi: Well, yes, I believe that there were enormous changes after the war. But as for me, I don’t think I’ve changed very much. I had a postwar mentality even before the war, you see. I was raised in a freedom-loving, shall we say, human, family. If anything, I was extremely critical of everything in the period before the war, including the military….
- In our youth, the only access we had to the world was through cinema; a kind of golden age of film. You had Frank Capra, John Ford, and many other brilliant filmmakers. I was deeply influenced by the movies those directors made. And their movies all portrayed the American common man—what was best about the middle class. We were deeply drawn to American movies, marvelling at the existence of such a bright world, free of restrictions.
- Interviewer: What if…an American unfamiliar with Japanese things, were to watch Harakiri or Youth of Japan. Would you want them to accept those films as portraits of the real Japan?
- Kobayashi: Yes, I believe that both movies are totally appropriate to gain historical perspective, or even to understand contemporary, postwar Japan…
- Interviewer: The swordplay was really fantastic, but ultimately the hero is not felled by a sword. He’s killed by a Western gun, a rifle, right? What is the significance of that?
- Kobayashi: He had to be summarily disposed of, in order to uphold the honour of the Iyi family, but there was also the clan’s own animal terror in the face of this man’s tremendous strength. The most important element in that scene, however, is the suit of armor. The moment he grabs the armour and throws it at them, the guns go off and shoot him down. When that suit of armour collapses, it symbolises the last gasp of resistance against authority. At the very end of the film, the armour has been fully restored, back in place, no smoke or any other distractions. So the film ends with the armour restored and the clan’s diary entry indicating that nothing of interest had taken place that day.
And this is from an essay for the Criterion Collection, by Joan Mellen.
- Like other directors of this period—notably Akira Kurosawa—Kobayashi often expressed his political dissidence via the jidai-geki, or period film, in which the historical past becomes a surrogate for modern Japan. In Kobayashi’s hands, the jidai-geki exposed the historical roots of contemporary injustice. (Japanese audiences were well schooled in history and could be counted on to connect the critique of the past with abuses in the present). Harakiri, made in 1962, was, in Kobayashi’s career, the apex of this practice. In the film’s condemnation of the Iyi clan, Kobayashi rejects the notion of individual submission to the group. He condemns, simultaneously, the hierarchical structures that pervaded Japanese political and social life in the 1950s and the 1960s, especially the zaibatsus, the giant corporations that recapitulated feudalism.
How Did We Do?
Pretty good, I think. I can’t tell you how happy I was when I saw the interviewer point out the rifles being Western. It was also exciting to see Kobayashi mention the lack of smoke in the final shot. I promise you, I don’t look up the interviews until after I write these.
There is a discrepancy with the smoke. Kobayashi seemed to imply it was part of the “distractions”. It seems he viewed the smoke as an indication that those in authority are in trouble. Where I took it as part of the mystique of authority. It’s a small difference but it changes the tone. For example, at the beginning, the smoke would show there’s unrest. And the faint wisps we see at the end would actually be hopeful, that more unrest is brewing. Where I argued that the smoke was a byproduct of reestablished control
I think both readings are fair. Because they both speak to the push-pull relationship between society and individuality. The two will always be at odds. Whenever society leans more traditional, individuals will fight for more rights. And whenever it leans more individual, others will push for more tradition. Just look at the politics of 21st century America and you’ll see the struggle between the two ideologies on full display.
Cast
- Tsugumo Hanshiro – Tatsuya Nakadai
- Chijiwa Motome – Akira Ishihama
- Tsugumo Miho – Shima Iwashita
- Saito Kageyu – Rentaro Mikuni
- Omodaka Hikokuro – Tetsuro Tamba
- Based on – The novel Ibunronin ki by Yasuhiko Takiguchi
- Written by – Shinobu Hashimoto
- Directed by – Masaki Kobayashi
