enjo (conflagración) (w&d kon ichikawa w. keiji hasebe, yukio mishima)

Icihkawa’s adaptation of Mishima’s novel is effortlessly stylish and beautifully shot in languid black and white. It tells the story of Mizoguchi, a Buddhist monk with a stammer whose purity causes problems for his monastery, an institution which has become dissolute, making money out of tourism, with the head monk having a lover and fathering a child. Mizoguchi is known as the son of a devout monk who committed suicide. The film proceeds elegantly to expound a story which leads to the inevitable conflagration of the title. Whilst the storytelling isn’t always as clear as it might be, in a telltale sign of being an adaptation, the film’s visual rigour would appear to reflect Mizoguchi’s fervour which contends with the presence of the post-war occupying US forces which are contributing to the corruption of the buddhist doctrine. This critique of the US influence on Japanese post-war culture comes almost as a side-note, though there are evident metaphorical implications to Mizoguchi’s ultimate act of arson.