Watching this movie on the big screen with the soundtrack of Philp Glass evoked a burst of visual and auditory climaxes. As the waves peeled away, Mishima Yukio's story also narrated, four chapters. Ingeniously linked together, the cause and effect of this legendary writer's life are clear. Although the scenes of the film are full of Japanese and dialogue, it must be said that a Western director narrates an oriental story without a bit of implicit mystery. Especially when Mishima was beaten on the ground, he took out the mirror and stared at his bruised face. Such naked narcissism is a very Western treatment. It seems that the director is mocking Mishima's narcissism.
It is desirable that Paul’s movies continue his usual style, full of motifs (themes/symbols). The enlightenment of Western aesthetics and a unique understanding of beauty: nude plaster statues, men disguised as women in theaters, repeated likes The cut-off skin is a metaphor for Mishima's abnormal love for beauty. My favorite shot in the whole film is when Mishima’s female companion compares Mishima’s naked body, and uses a mirror to project herself on him, becoming a whole new body. Mishima closes his eyes and enjoys the body. And spiritual joy. This writer itself is a contradiction to me. He advocates beauty, but he regards the beauty of destruction as eternal. The burning of the Kinkakuji Temple is his extreme beauty, and the pen record is to condense this beauty into indelible words. Mishima is crazy about beauty, trying to condense his life into an artistic fossil, which must be very unbelievable in the eyes of normal people. Especially when this kind of thinking rises to the political extreme full of religious significance, attracting "pure" teenagers to follow in Mishima's footsteps. I wonder if Mishima has always lived in his own world, just like many plots in the movie are shown in the form of stage plays, perhaps Mishima itself is a tragedy of abnormal love for beauty.
View more about Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters reviews
