Harakiri

About as close to a perfect film you can get. Definitely opened my eyes to older films and I will definitely be watching more older films soon. I could talk about so many things when it comes to this amazing movie but I specifically want to highlight one shot that I think perfectly encapsulates the essence of the movie. During the flashback showing Tsugomo’s reaction to Motome’s death and his epiphany regarding the culture he has clung to so dearly for all this time. He realizes that his stubbornness when it comes to holding on to the ways of the past has resulted in the deaths of everyone he loves. The specific shot that I mentioned is when Tsugomo is sitting on a lower part of the floor grasping at his sheathed sword and shaking it with anger, sorrow and every emotion in between. From his perspective he has failed his duty that the sword embodies and he is lower than he was before while clinging onto the culture within the sword. However, the way the scene is shot has Tsugomo at the top of the screen with the sword below him perhaps meant to imply that the reverse is true and Tsugomo failed because he let the culture embedded within the sword drag him down.