Jesse Ritz Harakiri Essay

The most important part of any story worth telling is conflict. The story Masaki Kobayashi relates in the movie Harakiri is full of conflicts, the most important of which involve questions of honor. These are not; however, (for the majority of the movie, at least) conflicts wherein one side possesses honor and one doesn’t. No, at its core the movie is a story of two irreconcilable types of honor brought into a dramatic conflict. Part of the reason the movie falls so dramatically short of what it could have been is because Kobayashi refuses to let this, its central conflict, play itself out appropriately.
First, before getting into that, an examination of the two types of honor involved is in order. The first one is represented by both Hanshiro Tsugomo and in the flashback portions of the movie by Tsugomo’s ward, Motome Chijiiwa, and we’ll call it ‘practical honor’. This is the honor of a John Wayne, a Sam Spade, or a J.J. Gittes (from Roman Polanski’s Chinatown). We call it ‘practical honor’ because this type of honor looks at the world with regard to simple reality and a logical assessment of the way things are. To a John Wayne charachter, a gun is a gun. It’s made of metal, it shoots people, and produces smoke. Beyond that, it has little to no value. If either of the hard-boiled detective characters I mentioned has to break/bend a law to get to the bottom of something, they don’t think twice about it – the law has no meaning for them if it doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do. Motomoe Chijiiwa is our most shining example of someone who is practically honorable. When his family becomes poverty-stricken and Chijiiwa is unable to find employment, he sells his swords for money, despite the commonly held notion that a samurai’s swords are his soul. Well, he can’t see, hear or feel his soul. He can see his family wasting away in front of him. To him, the only honorable path is to do everything he can to stop that.
The other kind of honor we’ll refer to as ‘Idealistic Honor’. Idealistic Honor is, unlike practical honor, characterized by a very unrealistic worldview. Idealistic Honor sees the world in terms of the way things should be, as opposed to the way things are. This is the honor of a Don Quixote, of Superman, or Peter Pan. Pure examples of this kind of honor are harder to find, because stories featuring characters of such honor generally depend on the moral infallibility of said characters, and so story-tellers are reluctant to bring those morals into questions. Examples do, exist, however. When, at the end of (Steven Spielberg’s) Hook, Robin William’s Peter Pan flatly refuses to kill Captain Hook (Dustin Hoffman) despite the latter’s assurances that he will always be hostile towards not only Peter but Peter’s children, this is an example of Idealistic Honor. Killing Captain Hook would have been an ugly thing to do, and hardly heroic in the traditional sense. Still, how long do you think John Wayne would have waited before blowing him away? Similar but less clear cut examples of the way this kind of honor is practiced can be seen in Don Quixote’s reverent treatment of Dulcinea juxtaposed with his ready willingness to fight with any males he comes across, as well as Superman’s characteristically gentle treatment of criminals who often have murderous intent. Our primary example of Idealistic honor in Harakiri is Hikokuro Omadaka, the retainer of the house of Iyi who essentially tortures Chijiiwa for selling his swords and cheapening the ritual of Seppuku. Completing the image of Omadaka as cold and unforgiving is the callous way with which he delivers Chijiiwa’s body to his family, speaking disrespectfully of the deceased even as his infant child is rushing towards death a room away. To Omadaka, Motome Chijiiwa had crossed a line that should not be crossed, and that was all that needed to be said of the situation.
The natural conflict between these two worldviews is a rock-solid foundation to build a movie upon, and for about the first 110 minutes of the movie, Kobayashi orchestrates events beautifully to bring this conflict into the light in the most logical and efficient way possible. What’s more, the conclusions the viewer is led to as the film progresses are inescapable. As events unfold, it’s easy to see which kind of honor holds up and which doesn’t. Motome Chijiiwa comes off as, at the absolute worst, a weak man trying to do what he could, whereas Omadaka appears downright psychotic at times. The end of the movie illustrates quite clearly that Kobayashi had an agenda in mind when making this movie, and that was to serve an indictment towards the kind of thinking espoused by the House of Iyi and the actions that thinking leads too. His zeal in getting this message across leads him to force an ending that ultimately cheapens his movie. During the last segment of the movie, Hanshiro Tsugomo illustrates quite clearly that the members of the House of Iyi do not practice the standards of honor that they hold others too, placing several retainers of the house into a situation that would demand they kill themselves and noting that they fail to do so. Thus any and all respect for the House of Iyi’s position is ultimately removed.
Isaac Asimov once said ‘Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing the right thing.’ Not only does this quote fit in beautifully with the theme of Harakiri, but it also might have served as a warning to Kobayashi. There was no real reason to take the legs out from under the House of Iyi at the end of that film – no reason barring either a lack of trust in the viewer, or a lack of faith in Kobayashi’s own message. Neither is valid, the latter certainly not – the actions and attitudes of the house of Iyi came off as just as disgusting, mayhap even moreso, when it was maintained that they actually believed in them. The moment Hanshiro Tsugomo tosses those three top-knot’s into view, Harakiri ceases to be an intelligent examination of an issue and becomes a multi-hour advertisement.