Harakiri is a brilliant parable, more humane than anything dispensed from a religious book. Though seemingly unrelatable to a 21st century American like me, it touches on countless themes that are wholly universal to the human experience, but also ones that are very pertinent to the here and now: fair health care; “honor” rituals used as a tool of oppression; the hypocrisy of the powerful; people being so fucking afraid of food stamp abuse that they end up turning cruel.
While unmistakably complex in its moral exploration, it’s also an impressively simple story, ingeniously plotted, creating - solving - and then creating more little mysteries to be solved throughout.
In 17th century Japan, an out-of-work samurai shows up at a the door of an estate requesting an audience and a space for him to commit ritual suicide (harakiri) due to a lack of prospects. However, the estate expresses concern because, apparently, another out-of-work samurai showed up at their door a few months ago with the same request. They fear a trend is growing of ronins requesting harakiri to garner sympathy and perhaps a few dollars while never actually intending to commit the act. What’s even more bizarre is that this new ronin used the exact same wording as the ronin from last week.
Again, this sounds completely unrelatable, right? Just wait.
Harakiri is a brilliant parable, more humane than anything dispensed from a religious book. Though seemingly unrelatable to a 21st century American like me, it touches on countless themes that are wholly universal to the human experience, but also ones that are very pertinent to the here and now: fair health care; “honor” rituals used as a tool of oppression; the hypocrisy of the powerful; people being so fucking afraid of food stamp abuse that they end up turning cruel.
While unmistakably complex in its moral exploration, it’s also an impressively simple story, ingeniously plotted, creating - solving - and then creating more little mysteries to be solved throughout.
In 17th century Japan, an out-of-work samurai shows up at a the door of an estate requesting an audience and a space for him to commit ritual suicide (harakiri) due to a lack of prospects. However, the estate expresses concern because, apparently, another out-of-work samurai showed up at their door a few months ago with the same request. They fear a trend is growing of ronins requesting harakiri to garner sympathy and perhaps a few dollars while never actually intending to commit the act. What’s even more bizarre is that this new ronin used the exact same wording as the ronin from last week.
Again, this sounds completely unrelatable, right? Just wait.
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