The seventh section accompanies the second dramatization of a Mishima's novel, in this case "Kyoko's House", focusing in the character (four in the original novel) of Osamu an egocentric young man that tries, without much success, to be a theater actor. This character represents the most narcissistic side of Mishima but also the new indolent japanese generations. While in Osamu's theme the music was cheerful and vivacious, here, the dialogue between he guitar and the string orchestra is deeply introspective, representing the internal conflicts of Osamu between his desires and the reality he lives on. As the music slowly goes in crescendo, we perceive a more lyrical nuance in the drama. The climax, with the motif of Mishima, marks the death of Osamu and the resolution of his inner contradictions. The eighth section is subtitled "Ichigaya", the area of Tokyo where there was the GHQ of the Japanese Self-defense army after the second wold war, and where Mishima would commit his state coup. In this scene, Mishima and his disciples travel by car to the main building. The music is reminiscent to the already heard on the second section: The tragic force of the strings is enhanced by the blows of the percussion. The ninth section is the background of a new flashback in which we see Mishima in his firsts steps as a succesful writer, contemplating his "Confessions of a Mask" behind a book store glass and receiving several prizes. The quartet accompanies the scene with a turbulent and passionate music, full of the tragic pathos that is present on the whole film. The tenth section is the last dramatization of a Mishima's novel. Based on the Shinpūren rebellion, the story tells us the rebellion of Isao Iinuma, raised and trained in the samurai code by his father. Isao becomes the instigator of a plot to topple the zaibatsu that he feels have corrupted the Yamato-damashii and betrayed the will of the Emperor. He is assured of the army's assistance by the young Lieutenant Hori. They plan to assassinate many key government figures simultaneously on December 3, 1932. The section starts with a willful theme presented by the strings, which is heroically developed with a strong sense of urgency. In the middle we find a contrasting section (the "Blood Oath" of Mishima and his followers) played by the string quartet, but the lyrism fades away in the tragedy and the dissonance before coming back to the heroic theme, which sowly rises up in a inmense crescendo that concludes triumphally. The eleventh section is a recent flashback that shows Mishima's gym training to achieve the health and the body he didn't had when he was young. As in previus sections (particularly III and VI) the music performed by the string quartet is strongly drammatic, but evolves taking a more impetuous tone, giving way to the following section The twelfth section is the one in which everything culminates: both the novel's scenes and Mishima's own suicide after the failure of his coup d'etat. The timpani blows mark the start of the ritual. The conclusion scenes of the novels come has the music reaches a massive climax based on the Mishima theme, concluding the film with the Seppuku of Isao from "Runaway Horses", dying in front of the rising sun with the last, memorable line of the novel: “The instant that the blade tore open his flesh, the bright disk of the sun soared up and exploded behind his eyelids.” The thirteenth section is a brief flashback when Mishima was piloting a plane in the army's training. The contemplation of the sun and the clouds leads him to a brief moment of extreme lucidity in which finally contemplates the death as the final unification of the pen and the sword (the lifestyle of the samurai) and his own contradiction between action and art, addressed in multiple ways in each one of his literary works. The music, full of pathos, accompanies this meditative state, bearing a reference to "Sun and Steel" a Mishima's essay in which Mishima tells us about relationship to his body, recounting his experiences, and reflections upon, his bodybuilding and martial arts training. The fourteenth and last section is a lyrical conclusion to the story. The string quartet presents a broad, lyrical theme that accompanies the credits sequence. The music slows down, leaving a nostralgic feeling before finally concluding.
Glass capta el espíritu de contradicción que fue Mishima: genio y locura, brutalidad e hipersensibilidad, militarismo fascistoide y vanguardia artística, tradicionalismo japonés y fama en Occidente...La música lo capta a la perfección acompañando las imágenes del filme como un guante a la mano.
Thank you for the nice summary and interpretation. One matter of terminology: The Imperial Japanese Army ceased to exist after WWII. We now have the Japan Self-Defense Forces.
