YUKOKU: Patriotism or the Rite of Love and Death
Yukio Mishima was one of the most influential and yet controversial figures of 20th century Japan. Considered for the Nobel Peace Prize in Literature in 1968, he was a prolific writer who explored Japan’s post-war transition into modernism with particular focus on the themes of aesthetics, sex and death.
Mishima is most famous, however, for his own death. As he aged, he obsessed over the concept of a pure, traditional Japan and struggled with what he perceived as Japan’s increasing westernization. He formed the Tatenokai, a militia that sought to restore sacredness to the Emperor. In 1970, the group stormed a military base in Shinjuku and took a commandant hostage. After failing to ignite revolutionary passion within the soldiers, Mishima committed seppuku, the samurai practice of ritual suicide.
Primarily a writer, YUKOKU, known by its English title - Patriotism or the Rite of Love and Death - is the only film that was written, directed and starred in by Mishima. Split into 5 chapters, the 28 minute, silent film is based on the 1936 coup by a group known as The Imperial Way.
In the film, Mishima plays Lieutenant Takeyama, a conspirator who is excluded from the coup because the other members respect his love for his wife, Reiko. Following the coup's failure, Takeyama, still a member of the military, must execute the mutineers. Choosing loyalty to his comrades over his orders, he and his wife decide to commit seppuku. The film crescendos in the final chapters. Chapter 3, “The Final Love” presents an incredibly passionate sex scene between the couple before their symbolic death. Chapters 4 and 5 deal with the seppuku of Takeyama & Reiko respectively and offer gruesome depictions of the act.
With the entire creative process controlled by Mishima, this film offers an incredible insight into the mind of a man struggling to accept what he saw as the decline of his nation. Shot as if it were a Noh play, the film is theatrical and comes off much like a dress rehearsal for Mishima’s own eventual downfall, a merging of his life and art.
