Harakiri

"When all is said and done, our lives are like houses built on foundations of sand. One strong wind and all is gone." Masaki Kobayashi's 'Harakiri' is a perfect film focused on the central threads of honour, grief, loneliness and tragedy, which treats each theme as a central part of the story without detracting from any of the other three. A once in a generation kind of film that will blow away any brave enough to step across its threshold. The sequence where Hanshiro removes the top knots of Hikokuro, Yazaki and Kawabe is some of the slickest cinema I've seen for a while, the camera work is masterful and the costume that Hanshiro is wearing paired with the straw ronin hat is just one of cinema's great costumes. Furthermore the duel between Hanshiro and Hikokuro Omodaka on the plains of Gojin-in is the films masterstroke, the contrasting costumes between Hikokuro and Hanshiro with Hanshiro in black and Hikokuro in white is not only massively visually pleasing but also allows for a deeper thematic meaning behind this cinematic duel. The scene when Motome Chijiwa commits harakiri with a bamboo tanto is one of the most sickening scenes I've seen in a while, the effort and strain on Chijiwa's is palpable and I kept looking down at my stomach to see if there wasn't a bamboo blade sticking out of me, it's visceral, nasty and really hard to watch. The performance by Tatsuya Nakadai is absolutely magnetising, the laughter, the anger, the cold menace and everything in between is so well done.On top of that how has this man been in Ran, Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, High and Low and The Human Condition trilogy. That may very well one of the the greatest actor filmography's I have ever seen, truly spectacular, a true titan. This film is so excellent planned, the writing is so clean and tight every moment has weight and is necessary, not something you can say for every film (Django Unchained...). The details and effort put into every frame, could genuinely be put in a museum, its all so artful, despite it's lack of colour it manages to convey more than some of these Netflix lighting films we have been subjected to recently. The end of this film had me clenching muscles I didn't even know I had, straining my eyes to spot every single small detail and every brilliant moment, it really is that good. Tanshiro's final. moments are just the cherry on top of a perfect film, the robbery of his honourable death by three gun wielding samurai is just a chef's kiss. The commentary on the Samurai code is undeniably powerful. Hanshiro's tale is powerful, emotional and serves the plot to a T. This film is one I have put off for too long and know I have seen I can confidently say that it belongs in the hall of fame and the people who hold this as what cinema should be, are absoluty correct. Spectacular.