• 炎上 (Conflagration), 1/23/11 (Sun), Tokyo

Ichikawa Kon’s 1958 film version of Mishima’s then-recent novel Kinkakuji (The Golden Pavilion), a fictionalization of the notorious incident just a few years earlier when a crazed monk burned down the centuries-old structure. The novel is filled with ruminations about the nature of beauty versus reality by a narrator isolated from society by his own insecurities over his crippling stutter. His image of Kinkakuji (called here by a different name), described by his father as almost other-worldly, sets him up for a devastating letdown when he encounters the actual dilapidated structure. The temple in his mind represents an ideal that, when violated, prompts him to destroy the former to protect the latter.

The film can’t begin to compete at that level, but it is a dutiful recounting of the main events and is highly effective on its own terms. It opens with the boy, Mizoguchi, already in custody and under interrogation for burning down the temple, then in fairly straightforward narrative recalls how he got to that point. His speaking scenes in the book never replicate his stammer, so it was interesting to hear the actual stuttering. The movie thereafter follows the narrative of the book pretty closely, with some notable adjustments. Some important scenes seem incomplete or disjointed without Mishima’s wordy buildup, such as when the boy frustratingly defaces another student’s sword, when he feels such disappointment upon seeing the shrine for the first time (which is what sparks the entire sequence of events), when he is shown out of nowhere following the club-footed guy, or when he delivers the photo of the geisha to the head priest. Others appear contrived, as when the woman lovingly cradles the club-footed guy’s injured leg. Mishima goes way overboard in his portrayal of just about everything, but in the end his prose does illuminate Mizoguchi’s motives. The lack of that background in the movie is a serious drawback.

On the positive side, the dialogues were much more natural than the long exasperating discourses in the novel, though the heavy Kyoto accent was pretty tough to follow. Also, there were some big improvements in the story itself. The interrogation scenes turned out to be a good framework, especially at the end, where the book had seemed to stop randomly. An objective narrative approach was probably a better choice than taking Mizoguchi’s perspective as in the novel. The policemen’s discussion of the arson in terms of how it will affect Kyoto’s tourist trade was an especially deft touch. The scenes with the mother also flushed out her personality nicely.

In particular, Mizoguchi’s encounter with the American soldier and his Japanese girlfriend was incomparably better in the movie: when the women tries to get away from the soldier’s abuse by running into the temple, the boy instinctively grabs at her (women were not allowed inside), accidentally knocking her down. This is what causes the miscarriage that begins his downward spiral. In the book, the soldier simply orders Mizoguchi to step on the woman’s stomach, which was dumb. The situation is much more believable here.

Additionally, the priest was given a nice line that is not in the book after Mizoguchi approaches him about his mistress, saying, “Knowing without understanding means nothing.” His story was augmented significantly by the addition of a love child with his geisha mistress. This gave him better motivation for his show of contrition at the shrine, and provided for a great moment when he saw the burning temple as heaven’s punishment for his sins. That might have been a distraction if it were in the novel since it veered from the main theme, but I thought it worked beautifully here. Another terrific moment was a dialogue during the visit to the prostitute. Mizoguchi, building up his courage to destroy the temple, asks what her reaction would be if the temple burned. She just shrugs disinterestedly, saying that the real tragedy would be if the brothel burned since she’s still got three years to go in her contract.

One damaging omission in the movie was the club-footed guy’s revelation to Mizoguchi of his correspondence with Mizoguchi’s old friend Tsurukawa, revealing that Tsurukawa’s death was not a car accident but suicide. The fact that the outwardly happy, extroverted Tsurukawa took his own life was a huge blow to Mizoguchi’s memory of his friend, again striking at his ideals versus, in this case, the unseen reality. In the movie, the death remains just an unfortunate occurrence. I’m not sure why it was omitted since it’s a plot thread that could easily have been included with a few additional lines. The movie missed a good opportunity here.

The film’s biggest trump card was its great casting and acting. All the principals were fine, led by a strong performance by Ichikawa Raizo (apparently a huge star in his day) as Mizoguchi. But most memorable were the priest (Nakamura Ganjiro), who gave a wonderfully modulated performance between external calm and internal anxiety, and the club-footed guy (Nakadai Tatsuya), who gave a fearless portrayal of a fairly despicable character. The priest’s assistant, Mizoguchi’s mother, the prostitute (a very young Nakamura Tamao) and the visiting priest at the end were also superior.

One comment I’ve seen suggests plausibly that the temple in the movie could represent the once-proud traditions of the past that have been sullied by the war, the occupation, modern society and such. In this view, it is the stultifying traditions that threaten Japan’s integrity and must be wiped away. The breakdown in the boy’s ideals is evident everywhere: his mother’s adultery, the hordes of paying tourists at the temple, the priest’s cold rejection of the beggar at the temple, his geisha lover, the police’s talk of arson only in how it will affect tourism. The burning of the Kinkakuji here could thus reflect either Mizoguchi’s attack on hypocrisy or (closer to the book) his attempt to maintain the purity of the ideals that the shrine embodies.

In any case, the film was a bold attempt to put the story to screen, including some scenes that are actually better or more realistic than the book. Well worth watching.