Film friday!!!!! HARAKIRI AND PUTTING HUMANITY OVER TRADITION!!!

A bit of a slow week for movies but I did watch one atleast! That being Harakiri (1962). I'll watch another tonight maybe. I'm thinking Prince of Egypt. I should probably explain. This is a thing i do where I talk about a movie every Friday. I used to write this on another site and it was really fun. I don't write there anymore because I got bored and I don't feel like sharing it. I also want my blogs to take more of a film/media turn or whatever. It's what I love writing about most if I'm being honest. It's a gateway to explore so many other topics. Truth be told I want this to be like Half in the bag.

Okay, you wanna know what moth watches on YouTube? I love half in the bag. These two middle aged men talk about movies and they're boomers and every so often they say something that makes me roll my eyes but for the most part they give good criticism. I'm young so maybe I won't make you roll your eyes. I'm stalling now because I don't know how to tackle this film.

Let's start with a still. This beautiful shot. As you can see the film is in beautiful black and white. Not just black and white... beautiful black and white. What's the difference? There is none I just like the cinematography. 

This is the famous still btw. Its a duel. No context because it happens late in the film and I don't wanna spoil but it's genuinely so hair raising to me. It's like Taxi Driver almost where the movie has a non violent approach throughout its runtime but then it saves its action for special moments though the fights in this movie are actually cool unlike in Taxi Driver where Travis wants it to look like a cool cowboy scene but it's all messy and disturbing and it's really hard to find that cool unless you're a dipshit. No offense. Just like that's not the point. 

The whole movie is this sort of build up to the final scene. The HARAKIRI! which is when you slice your stomach open for honor. It's the title of the movie, you know he's gonna do it but he makes a big thing about it . First he has to tell a story and that comes off as the grumblings of some old man but as the runtime progresses, the story starts to come together and his motives, his character it's all built up so subtly as he tells the story and just kinda shoots the shit with these guys watching him do Harakiri. 

Kinda like Taxi Driver. I feel like we all know going in to that that the movie can only end in bloodshed and same with this. With a title like that, the poster featuring blood spilled on a white mat. Speaking of white! 

Tradition. Purity. A lot of weird nationalist imagery they all involve white symbolically. The red on the white being a stain on the Samurai tradition. Listen, I read the Musashi book, it's cool! It had some good stuff but you don't need to take everything out of that. I think we maybe shouldn't try to live like Samurai. Is that a hot take??? Because like look at Yukio Mishima. Dawg. You can take like concepts of discipline but don't take it too far, okay? Samurai are cool! But there has to come a point. 

I watched this movie in two parts. Before and after my blog on Yukio Mishima and before I thought the movie was condoning these traditions of Harakiri, seppukku and I thought the director said we should carry the Samurai tradition into the future so initially I wasn't too hot on it. After writing I watched the rest of the movie and I realized it was in rejection or not complete rejection of it but more like tradition is valuable but tradition should never be more valuable than humanity. You have these two sides. The supervisors, heavy on tradition to the point where they're willing to take lives just to maintain it and then the main character who is not against tradition but sees that there is more to life and he values his humanity and life more than tradition.

Back to actual technical stuff. The movie's use of violence is interesting. Like I said, I read the Musashi book, he's THE samurai that everyone knows and looks up to. He was very disciplined and took Samurai stuff super seriously so in the combat scenes, the main character expresses discipline and I bring up Musashi because I think he quotes Musashi even THEN at the same time, for his own survival, he puts himself above tradition. So this character is really interesting, I wouldn't call him contradictory, more balanced. He lives on his own terms. He puts his loved ones above tradition because he lost people to that lifestyle, he lost things because of the Samurai lifestyle. It left him with nothing except resentment. 

I will say no more. You should watch this movie for yourself. It's truly a masterpiece. The top movie on the letterboxd top 250 list. Definitely worth a watch!

10/10