"Yûkoku" is a 29-minute Japanese black-and-white short film and certainly among the country's most known short film, especially if we talk about live action. There is no spoken dialogue in here, so if you watch the version with English text, you will understand everything properly. The story is a double-edged sword (no pun intended). I personally did not really like it. I thought the intimacy between the 2 main characters was portrayed nicely and made this a very emotional watch for the first half. The actual suicide scenes did not do too much for me. Yukio Mishima wrote, co-directed and starred in this little movie. He died less than 5 years later from actual suicide, which gives the whole thing an awkward note. The best thing about this film is certainly the way the deep love between the 2 protagonists is displayed. No surprise Mishima's real wife wanted to ban this film and make it disappear, especially in a country like Japan, which is certainly not as open-minded when it comes to sexuality as many other countries are. Luckily for everybody who want to watch it, the movie survived. Still, I myself do not recommend it. I hoped it would be better.
Review of Patriotism
