Harakiri

Achieved Review
October, 2005

HARAKIRI
Kobayashi, 1962



Right from the opening shot of Harakiri I sensed the film was something special. The way the camera slowly leaned in and panned around the mysterious set of armour felt so uneasy and puzzling. It is almost as if this opening shot was a foreshadowing of things to come, as much of Harakiri has to do with mystery and puzzlement. Harakiri actually reminded me a lot of Rashomon when it comes to the way the story was told, but the difference is I was disappointed with Rashomon – I absolutely loved Harakiri.

Going back to the opening shot, it was also a great indicator of the way Harakiri’s cinematography was going to be like. It is usually quite still, with slow tracks, pans and generally very careful, smooth movement. However, there are often times quick yet controlled zooms on faces to indicate shock, and when there are sword fights the camera starts to really move. It follows the duelists, careful to capture their every movement, and then will turn on its side of The Third Man esque slanted shots, which looked gorgeous. Overall, as I’ve said, the cinematography was beautiful. It has a perfect balance between letting the viewer focus on what is happening and having pure visual flair. I’d put this in a top list of cinematography for sure; it was that expert!

Hand in hand with the cinematography was the editing, which was to say the least very interesting. The way Harakiri’s narrative was structured (which I will get to), it required very carefully cutting. Thankfully it was edited flawlessly, and held all the films parts together spotlessly. The cuts between shots and the way the editing held the flow of the cinematography was impeccable, and better yet was the way it was paced.

To explain why it was paced so well and why the editing worked so well with the story is hard to describe without getting into the actual plot however. The way it is structured is Rashomon style; stories within stories. In this case, it is about a scruffy looking Samurai who shows up at a clan’s fortress asking to be allowed to kill himself. The clan is suspicious about this, and this is where the stories within stories begin to be told. Through various narrators back story, major plot points, turning points and even grin enticing twists are flushed out. It is really quite complex, but it works so perfectly because I never knew what was going to happen next. The entire time I had no idea what the scruffy looking samurai’s true intentions were, and it was so involving and absorbing to watch it all fold out. The story for Harakiri was defiantly one of the main highlights of the film, as it was just brilliant.

Man on man, I don’t know how to fit everything else in. I mean, the performances for example. They all were so refined and expertly given, particularly from Tatsuya Nakadai. They took the wonderful script and characters and breathed energetic life into them. How about the fight choreography? Albeit, there were not actually many sword fights, but when there were the cinematography coupled with the carefully planed choreography made for excellent sword play, particularly in the final fight scene which I thought was simply a classic sword battle. It reminded me a lot of the final scene of Sword of Doom, which was incredible.

I am probably missing some things about Harakiri which deserve to be mentioned, but I think it is safe to say you get the point; Harakiri was a masterpiece. No mater what component of the film you look at, whether it be the complex, layered and overall stunning story, or the astonishing cinematography and direction, everything was just virtually perfect. Not only is this one of the best Japanese films I’ve seen so far (which I saying a lot, but it is also simply one of the best films I’ve seen regardless of genre. I highly recommend you see this, and if you happen to be a fan of foreign movies you are required to see this.