Yukio Mishima (三島由紀夫): a Kamikaze for Beauty - The Harmony of Pen and Sword

"Beauty is a terrible and awful thing. Within the beautiful both sides meet and all contradictions exist side by side."
--Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

INT. KASHIWAGI'S ROOM - NIGHT (Golden Pavilion)
Mizoguchi fingers a miniature bamboo model of the Golden Pavilion. Kashiwagi cuts a floral arrangement in his humble room.
KASHIWAGI Nothing's that unbearable. You'll get over it.
MIZOGUCHI No. Everything is p-p-powerless.
KASHIWAGI What happened? She ran away?

MIZOGUCHI (indicates model) It was as sm-small as this, but grew so b-b-big it filied the world like tremendous music. I was s-s-surrounded by eternity. My arms were p-p-paralyzed. (clutches model to his chest, extends his other hand) How can I reach out and t-t-touch life with one hand, when I've got e-e-eternity in the other? I tried to c-concentrate on my lust but she just va-vanished. That's the p-p-power of beauty's eternity. It poisons us. It blocks out our lives.

KASHIWAGI Maybe it's not beauty that has so much power. Maybe it's just you.
MIZOGUCHI
Beauty!
KASHIWAGI What makes you so sure?
MIZOGUCHI I've d-d-devoted my life to it..

KASHIWAGI (laughs)
Please, enough of your pride! Beauty is like a rotten tooth. It rubs against your tongue, hurting, insisting on its importance. Finally you go to a dentist. Then you look at the small bloody tooth in your hand and say, "Is that all it was?" Knowledge can turn the very unbearableness of life into our weapon. Only knowledge can set us free.

MIZOGUCHI N-nothing else?
KASHIWAGI No, everything else is- madness or death.
MIZOGUCHI There must be some p-power. Something we can d-d-do.
As they speak, the background slowly turns into a solid GOLD screen. Yellow smoke drifts across the floor.
KASHIWAGI (teasing) You forgot beauty already?

MIZOGUCHI (shoves model in pocket) Beauty is now my enemy. Life is b-b-bearable only when I imagine the G-gold Pavilion has been destroyed. The"American b-b-bombers will come. Then I'll be free.
22 INT. AIR RAID BUNKER - NIGHT (1945)

INT. KIMITAKE'S ROOM - DAY (1937)
BLACK AND WHITE. Kimitake, 12, pages through an illustrated survey of European art.
He turns a page, then stops. His eyes close in on a painting of the martyrdom of St. Sebastian by Guido Reni.
Sebastian, wearing a loin cloth, is tied to a tree. His pale body stands out against dark skies; his eyes are lifted toward Heaven. One arrow pierces his left armpit, another his right side.
MISHIMA (V.O.) Suddenly I came across a picture whose only purpose was to wait for centuries and ambush me.

The camera examines the details of Reni's sentimental painting.
Kimitake leans back and unzips his fly. The camera returns to Reni's painting as Kimitake masturbates.
MISHIMA (V.O.) The instant I saw it I trembled with joy. My body was filled with a passion as strong as anger. My hand began its unconscious dance.

MISHIMA (V.O.) Words are a deceit. In order to express the unexpressable, the writer must be deceitful. But action is never deceitful, (pause)
Can art and action ever be united?
He's in his own world:

MISHIMA (V.O.) (continuing) Bunburyodo "to harmonize pen and sword." The samurai motto used to be a way of life, now it's a cliche. The truth is that harmony can only happen in a moment, a flash. The average age for men in the Bronze Age• was eighteen, in the Roman era twenty-two. Heaven must have been beautiful then. Today, it must look dreadful.

When a man reaches forty, he has no chance to die beautifully. No matter how he tries, he will die of decay. He must compel himself to live.