Yûkoku (1966) More at IMDbPro »

Narcissism and self-indulgence are the main features of 1966 short film Patriotism: The Ritual of Love and Death. Sadly, divorced from its historical interest - a famous suicide playing a man who commits suicide - it's really not very good. Played out on a stylised set designed like a Noh theatre stage and performed without dialogue, writer-director-star Yukio Mishima shows little understanding of silent film storytelling by relying on tediously lengthy and leaden scrolls of explanatory text that defeat the very idea of disposing with dialogue. Unfortunately without them the film wouldn't make a great deal of sense since Mishima is more interested in striking poses and detailing the act of seppuko in lingering detail than conveying what lies behind the act in more than the most simplistic terms: the act is all, leaving us to take everything else on faith. It's not all bad: Yoshiko Tsuruoka's excellent performance compensates for Mishima's weakness as an actor and Kimio Watanabe's black and white cinematography is excellent, but it's more a failed avant-garde experiment that simply reflects its creator's morbid self-obsession than a valid work in its own right