The Cinematheque

“One of the greatest of all biographical films.”

Kevin Jackson, The Criterion Current

George Lucas and Francis Coppola funded Paul Schrader’s (effectively) banned-in-Japan Mishima, a dazzling, distinctive dramatization of the life, death, and art of Yukio Mishima, the renowned Japanese writer. Mishima committed seppuku (ritual disembowelment) in 1970 after a bizarre attempt at inciting a right-wing military coup. Schrader renders his controversial subject (played by Ken Ogata) as a sexually tortured, alienated individualist driven to destruction by a thirst for self-affirmation and redemption (a figure not unlike other Schrader protagonists, including Travis Bickle of the Schrader-penned Taxi Driver). Mishima’s last day of life frames the film; excerpts from three Mishima novels are enacted on extraordinary colour sets designed by Eiko Ishioka; and monochrome flashbacks depict the writer’s early life. A stunning Philip Glass score adds operatic grandeur. Mishima’s family and others objected to the treatment of homosexuality. Schrader cites Mishima as the best picture he’s directed.