Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985)

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

The acting in this movie is really good.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Oh, how the critics fell all over themselves to praise their goldenboy Paul Schrader (author of Taxi Driver) when this movie came out. I never saw the qualities they were detecting when I watched this movie back in the day, so I re-viewed it, to see if I got it wrong. Mishima is extremely uninteresting. This is a chilly, unremarkable movie about an author living/working in a chilly abstruse culture. The flat reenactments don't hold your attention because they are emotionally adrift and stagy. And the rest of it just sits there being awful... with soldiers singing songs about the masculinity they pledge themselves to, hairsplitting about purity, the admiration of swords, etc.It must be a triumph when you learn you've landed Philip Glass; but then you have to get something out of him. Glasses score offers not a whit of distinction from his other work, nor does it provide the film any perceptible value. In 2010 it should be clear to anyone that Schrader squandered his career on work of no impact or importance (Cat People, AutoFocus, Light Sleeper, Patty Hearst, American Gigolo). He can bore you to pieces, and kill the momentum of a movie, quicker than anyone else. Schrader has made a resume full of lousy, amateurish films.

The only pure life, is one that ends with a signature in blood.So says Mishima anyway, a young sheltered boy who becomes a celebrity author. The life of one of Japans most celebrated literary voices, is told from three perspectives, his life just before he and four members of his private army take over a Japanese military base and commit ritual suicide(shown in color), flashbacks(shown in black and white), and scenes from his novels(shown in a kind of dreamy Technicolor set design somewhere between traditional Noh Theater and "the Wizard Of Oz". These stories are often told at the same time, but are edited to reinforce, the slow fusing of Mishima's life with his fictions, until the end(or the beginning) when like the ancient samurai he so admires, he will be at a balance of pen and sword (when his words and actions are the same, and he is a full and "pure" being).Paul Schrader wrote the screen play for "Taxi Driver", and directed "Cat People"(a bizarre erotic horror film, which left strange impressions on me as a boy), and in Mishima, he comes closest to making a really excellent film.Whats interesting is to watch the poet, the homosexual, the shy and awkward man with a low body image who overstates his Tuberculosis to get of of WW2 (of which he seems forever ashamed), become a body building, samurai obsessed, a-sexual, media phenomena, all the while still writing prolific amounts of novels, plays, and short stories.A short and sweet version is to say Mishima has no father, and becomes obsessed with masculinity, beauty, sex and self destruction, in some tragic attempt to feel connected to something bigger than himself, that he was always missing. Watching him with his fellow suicidal cadets, you see him happy, delivering his big paternal speech, giving orders, and loving the control...until the speech itself, the point where pen and sword meet? Of course, this ignores the subtlety of the story telling craft here which makes this transformation so natural and remarkable. Though the story, fascinating at times, really isn't this movies greatest success. The cinematography, performances, editing,music(by Philip Glass), and set designs, are really what make this worth seeing, and more than a traditional bio-pic.One day I will pick, up a Mishima book, he does seem to have an ear for prose, and for staging ideas, but for now I'm satisfied with the film.Those interested in Japanese Literature, and post-war culture, should check out. Fans of inventive combinations of facts and fictions, should enjoy as well.

Mishima - a life in four chapters is in my opinion the best Paul Schrader film to this day. Mesmerizing cinematography, accompanied with Philip Glass mystical musical score added a completely magical aura to the story of one of Japan's greatest novelists, whose originality and picturesque narrative are beautifully portrayed in this film. As any gifted character, Mishima was troubled with severe self conflicts, the main of them being conflict between a "pen and a sword" as the director puts it in his final chapter, or the struggle between the sensitive poet with homosexual feelings, living in a notoriously masculine society with centuries long warrior traditions, thus widening the gap between the sensitive and the militantly traditional side of Mishima himself.All Schrader's films (and the ones he wrote scripts for) are basically stories of inside conflict within a man that doesn't belong in an environment he lives in. That also goes for Mishima, who, apart from Japanese military school upbringing is brought up with love for theater and words. His demise consisted of both of these key points in his life, it was about words and theatrical ending in a life long play. Film like this comes along once in a long while, and most will have to wait a lifetime to reach this beauty. 20 out of 10!!

This is a movie that should be viewed and treated as a piece of art. This is an oblivious labour of love by the Schrader brothers about the life of Yukio Mishima that is full truly artistic elements. The movie jumps from color to black and white, past to present, fictional works by Mishima to him. All without being confusing in the least bit. The only thing that gets me is that the entire movie, with the exception of the narrator's spoken parts is in Japanese. Still a masterpiece that deserves an audience but hasn't found won. Criterion, if you are reading this, this is a film that should be released under your imprint with as much extras as possible. This film truley deserves more. 10/10