Patriotism (film)

Plot

After participating in the Ni Ni Roku Incident of February 1936, Lieutenant Shinji Takeyama has been given orders to execute some of his fellow mutineers. He decides to commit seppuku, and his wife Reiko vows to kill herself with him. They make passionate love, then commit suicide.

Style

Patriotism is a silent, thirty-minute black-and-white film with long expository intertitles elaborating on the story and its historical background. It contains visual references to Noh theatre, as Mishima admired the traditional style and wrote several plays in the genre. Set in a single room, it is composed of static wide shots and lingering close-ups, most of which obscure Mishima's eyes.

Cast

Release

Patriotism was originally distributed in Japan by Japan Art Theatre Guild on 12 April 1966. It was released theatrically again by Toho and Japan Art Theatre Guild on 15 June 1966.

On November 25, 1970, Mishima committed seppuku after delivering a speech intended to inspire a coup d'état. After Mishima's suicide his widow Yōko requested that all existing copies of the film be destroyed. But in 2005 the original negatives were discovered in perfect condition, in a tea box at a warehouse at their home in Tokyo. The film was released on DVD in Japan in 2006 and then in the US by the Criterion Collection in 2008.