Harakiri | The Essence of Man

It was a sluggish close last Monday at my workplace where, through our boredom, a discussion scourging through aliens, technology, gender and dating preferences would eventually land on an awkward final note - a male and female co-worker of mine, butting heads over which half of the planet, male or female, was to blame for the spike in suicide rates amongst British men in the preceding decade. The former would soon take his break and the aftermath was dour, in a way that turned me back to my trailing list of cleaning jobs that this time I commenced on my lonesome. From there, I had all the time in the world (or, the rest of my shift) to do what I usually do in such moments of relative solitude - daydream of cinema. It was a fortnight prior that I had the luxury of witnessing Masaki Kobayashi’s Harakiri for the first time, on the big screen at that - it was an inevitable sensation and I expected nothing less from Letterboxd’s highest rated narrative feature and a legendary marker of Japanese cinema. The film really does have something for everyone: the interwoven non-linearly told story, its wide spreading thematic contentions from deeply personal to heavily political, its time defying cinematography and so much more. I’d be doing the film an injustice if I attempted to speak on all of those elements in such a restrained article and even sense I’m about to do so right now having seen it only once, though it has certainly lingered since.

You’ve seen Adolescence, right? Stephen Graham’s mini-series has been dominating the Netflix charts since its release and for good reason - even disregarding the flash of its one take gimmick that has attracted viewers for deserved visual applause, it is how Graham and co. view redpill driven male rage through the modern optics of social media addiction and the overbearing horrors of the online manosphere that festers there, that has carried the project into parliamentary discussion for viewing in schools. A boy who is not catered to by those more responsible will inevitably be captured by those bound instead by draconian beliefs - to jump back a few decades, films like David Fincher’s Fight Club or Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver told tales of these systems inspired by troubles of the times all the same. It is quite incredible to jump back even further then, visiting Harakiri with a contemporary lens and dissecting all it has to say with all that we have told through cinema since its debut in 1962, realising that men are still writing about men and the damaging systems in which they uphold that seek only to warp the mind of the unbeknownst individual. Rather than write his protagonist as a lone representative of thinly veiled male fragility though, Kobayashi instead allows Hanshiro Tsugumo to function more as a beacon for his pacifist philosophies and outspoken opinions on feudalism, a character whose concerns regard the dismantling of the samurai facade and their waning code of honour. In Tsugumo, we see a mature older man that we come to learn has fostered generations of children and is an inspiration both professionally and humanly to his younger brother-in-law Motome Chijiwa. 

Critically, we see swathes of male film fans misread the texts of Fight Club and those of a similar ilk, and though this is absolutely not the fault of said texts, perhaps there is a conversation to be had that the greatest deliverance of showcasing the true essence of manhood is not singularly portraying a character that tragically counteracts it, but to instead simultaneously present the system alongside a man who entirely rejects and rises above it within the same narrative. This is Harakiri in a nutshell and why I find it to be so relevant sixty three years later, in how it speaks to the systemic issue where impressionable men are pigeonholed as cogs for a doomed machine - I enjoy the film as a period piece for how Kobayashi was able to present such a machine via the Tokugawa shogunate of 1630’s Japan and the samurai code that would keep the country under such heavy dictatorship rule, truly allowing him to exaggerate, though still remain truthful to, his anti-government beliefs following his time as a soldier in World War II and the absurd idea that valuing made up ritual as gospel is, really, quite silly. I have thus found the various readings of Harakiri as a story of revenge to be entirely inaccurate - this would fundamentally transform the text from one where a strong man and key role model to his young peers challenges the system he’s aware he’ll inevitably be crushed under, to one where he instead befalls the tragic fate of submitting to the rageful tendencies that so often enrapture emotionally scarred men, which Tsugumo certainly is. This would still make for an engaging story, but it is one I have experienced before and seen done better on many occasions - by contrast, the decision to embolden Tsugumo as a stoic rebel who withholds crucial information surrounding his grand plan from all of Lord Kageyu, his men and thus the audience, makes for a masterclass of slow burn storytelling that uproots the reasoning behind the Iyi clan’s murder of Chijiwa as the selfish prioritisation of ‘honour’ over the life of an innocent human being. As the brilliant tagline goes - ‘the world has never understood why the Japanese prefer death to dishonor’.

What transpires is a masterful climax laced with a string of ironies that only supports this belief of Tsugumo’s, that the samurai system ruling over his country with an iron blade is hypocritical to its core, despite the message of honour it spouts. Though the odds are stacked against him in the final fight, the Iyi clan members unconsciously give in to the basic human instinct that death is a force worth fearing, particularly when channeled through the blade of a man who is loyal to values that are true and honest, in addition to the memory of his fading family. Tsugumo will die, that is a certainty, but the knowledge of his skill endangers each individual swordsman and, it is this reluctance within any and all of them to meet our hero squarely with their supposed honour that births an incredible one-man finale where Tsugumo’s inevitable road to demise results in destruction of the Iyi clan’s palace, injuring many of Kageyu’s men and killing a few to boot, all in consequence of the Lord’s inability to comprehend the reality looming over his now exposed code, one that even himself shies away from when faced with the threat of death. It is essential to highlight that Tsugumo never strictly threatens to murder anyone present at his hearing, nor ever in the film - only that, should he not be granted a fair leave, he may have to do so in self defence. Kageyu’s cowardly decision to risk the lives of the men he claims to adorn to uphold tradition is where his ying intertwines with Tsugumo’s yang, where Kobayashi’s criticism of feudalist power shines brightest and though the Iyi clan win the battle physically, Kageyu’s noticeable despair in the bloodbath’s aftermath is proof of a greater philosophical defeat, an understanding that his worldview is propped up by falsehoods - this does nothing to deter him however, as his lies spread through Edo that Tsugumo lost with murderous intentions so that his position remains feared and thus, respected - though, the notion that a feared man can as well be respected in earnest is another argument entirely, one that I do not believe in and nor did Kobayashi himself.

Now - is it men, or is it women? My mind didn’t just jump to Harakiri in the wake of the aforementioned debate with my co-workers because it’s such a phenomenal picture, but more than that - I find it to be my personal favourite deconstruction of manhood, offering an evaluation of such that is unmistakably a celebration of its true essence in the face of the systems who would abuse it: providing for your family, possessing unquenchable moral conviction, donning a really cool beard and, as the saying goes - sticking it to the man.

Written By Jack Mortimer | IG: @jackcmortimer | LB: jackcmortimer