“In my earliest years, life consisted of two contradictory elements. One was words, which could change the world. The other was the world itself, which had nothing to do with words.”
This is such an interesting way to approach a biopic. You would think using so many different styles would be exhausting, but it’s not, it works perfectly. The stories are weaved into the life of their author so well. It is clear that Paul Schrader had a real vision and knew what he was doing was going to work. This really is an expertly crafted film in every way, especially from the amazing colors and production design the film works in. It reminds me a lot of what Zhang Yimou accomplished years later with HERO. Still I think what Eiko Ishioka accomplished, especially with the three stories, is even better. Phillip Glass’s score is also really well composed and deserves a shoutout. Ken Ogata is so good as Mishima. He is able to portray all sides of this complicated man from the joyous moments to the darker ones. The man is so complex and thus so is the way his story is presented. It is insane that this happened in real life and it is so nice that Schrader decided to look at his life as a whole instead of his final moments. I watched it with the Japanese narration — I would be interested in seeing it with Roy Scheider’s narration as well.
