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HARAKIRI
1962
Director
Masaki Kobayashi
Starring
Tatsuya Nakadai
Shima Iwashita
Tetsurō Tamba
Runtime
133 minutes
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Unlike any samurai film before it, Kobayashi’s austere and unflinching tale concentrates the hypocrisy of power during the Edo period into two harrowing hours of waiting for a man to commit seppuku. The prolonged horror of HARAKIRI could be best described as the doom metal of the jidaigeki genre.
Following the collapse of his clan, unemployed samurai Tsugumo Hanshirō (Tatsuya Nakadai) approaches the manor of Lord Iyi, asking to use their courtyard to commit ritual suicide. In an attempt to turn him away, he is told the deeply disturbing story of the last man who approached the manor– who was forced to commit seppuku with a bamboo sword after attempting to back out of the ceremony at the last second. Tsugumo doesn’t bat an eyelash at the threat. Convinced of his integrity, they allow him in. Little do they know that Tsugumo’s intentions are far more uncompromising than they could have imagined. Like the haunting of an unrelenting spirit, his invitation gives way to a steady unraveling of the hypocrisy of what the ruling class calls “honor.”
To put it simply, this movie rips. Winner of the Cannes Special Jury Prize and currently the highest-rated movie on all of Letterboxd(!), HARAKIRI is a fierce evocation of individual agency in the face of a corrupt and hypocritical system.
Following the collapse of his clan, unemployed samurai Tsugumo Hanshirō (Tatsuya Nakadai) approaches the manor of Lord Iyi, asking to use their courtyard to commit ritual suicide. In an attempt to turn him away, he is told the deeply disturbing story of the last man who approached the manor– who was forced to commit seppuku with a bamboo sword after attempting to back out of the ceremony at the last second. Tsugumo doesn’t bat an eyelash at the threat. Convinced of his integrity, they allow him in. Little do they know that Tsugumo’s intentions are far more uncompromising than they could have imagined. Like the haunting of an unrelenting spirit, his invitation gives way to a steady unraveling of the hypocrisy of what the ruling class calls “honor.”
To put it simply, this movie rips. Winner of the Cannes Special Jury Prize and currently the highest-rated movie on all of Letterboxd(!), HARAKIRI is a fierce evocation of individual agency in the face of a corrupt and hypocritical system.