Patriotism / The Woman Who Wanted to Die

Patriotism or the Rite of Love and Death
『憂國』
Yukoku

Imported 35mm Print. Following the failed 1936 coup d’état, a military officer chooses to commit ritual suicide with his wife rather than prosecute his co-conspirators in this striking ATG adaptation of Mishima’s eponymous short story, directed by and starring the writer himself. Drawn out across five acts, Mishima stages a dramatized and aestheticized death on an expressionist noh platform as the two lovers bid adieu to corporeal existence within the grandiose gestures of their twilight hours. Inseparable from his own orchestrated death four years later—so much so, that his widow would order all copies of the film to be destroyed after his suicide—Mishima’s ceremonial exercise is a rapturous convergence of his obsessions with eros, life, death and beauty. Yet, undeniably, Patriotism or the Rite of Love and Death, soundtracked by Wagner’s Liebestod (“Love-Death”), remains an ultranationalist fantasy with its overt romanticization of seppuku, patriotic duty and reverence to Japan’s imperialist past.

Print from the collection of the Cinémathèque française.

Dir. Yukio Mishima, 1966, 30 min., 35mm, b&w, in Japanese with French titles and live English subtitles. With Yukio Mishima, Yoshiko Tsuruoka.

The Woman Who Wanted to Die
『性輪廻 死にたい女』
Segura Magura: Shinitai Onna

Scripted by Masao Adachi mere days after Yukio Mishima’s death and filmed in the ensuing weeks, Koji Wakamatsu’s provocative pinku is a reaction to the shocking dramatics of the late polemicist’s public suicide and attempted coup. Two former lovers, each with new partners, meet on the snowy slopes of a hot spring town. The couples, including a member of Mishima’s Tatenokai militia who missed his chance to die “honorably,” engage in suicidal ideations over sex and politics, endeavoring to attempt double suicide once again. Interweaving flashbacks, romantic notions of death, and newspaper clippings of Mishima’s ritual suicide, The Woman Who Wanted to Die is a nihilistic interrogation of the meaning and relevance of seppuku in Japan’s postwar state, tinged with Wakamatsu and Adachi’s ironic critique of Mishima’s theatrical demise.

Dir. Koji Wakamatsu, 1970, 71 min., DCP,  b&w and color, in Japanese with English subtitles. With Eriko Shima and Hiroshi Yajima. Script by Masao Adachi.

Recommended Programming:

Yukio Mishima Centennial Series: Emergences
September 11- December 6, 2025

Part of John and Miyoko Davey Classics
Year-round screenings of beloved classics, restorations, and rediscoveries of classic Japanese cinema, offering a new cinematic canon from across the scope of Japanese cinema. Presented with the John and Miyoko Davey Endowment Fund for Classic Japanese Film.

---

© Toho Co. Ltd, 1965

Patriotism / The Woman Who Wanted to Die is generously supported by The John and Miyoko Davey Endowment Fund for Classic Japanese Film.

Film programs are generously supported by Anime NYC, ORIX Corporation USA, and Yen Press. Endowment support is provided by the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Endowment Fund and The John and Miyoko Davey Endowment Fund. Additional season support is provided by Jono Abrams and Elizabeth Linn, Ms. Ayumi Arafune, Darin Arita and Kanako Arita, Mike Audet, Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey Catanzaro, The Globus Family, George P. Hirose, Akiko Koide and Shohei Koide, David Toberisky, Joseph Rajaratnam and Dharshini Iolanthe Sivakumaran, Japan Society Film Council, and other Film supporters.

Transportation assistance is provided by Japan Airlines, the official Japanese airline sponsor of Japan Society Film Program. Housing assistance is provided by the Prince Kitano New York, the official hotel sponsor of Japan Society Film Program.

Japan Society arts and culture programs are supported by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, and in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Japan Society’s 120th anniversary initiatives and related programs are generously supported by Champion Sponsor, MUFG Bank, Ltd.; Advocate Sponsor, Mizuho Americas; and Friend Sponsor, Mitsubishi Corporation (Americas).