Philip Brasor – Review: Mishima, the Last Debate

Compte-rendu critique du film documentaire de Keisuke Toyoshima.

“Mishima Yukio vs Todai Zenkyoto 50nen me no shinjitsu” © 2020 Shinchosha

Almost 50 years after he committed ritual suicide at the self-defense agency headquarters in Tokyo at the age of 45, Yukio Mishima wedges his way back into Japan’s consciousness in the form of a documentary based on “lost footage” of a public debate he had with a left-wing student organization at the Komaba campus of the University of Tokyo in May 1969. In terms of quality and content, the footage is certainly impressive and worthy of scholarly and even general scrutiny, though there’s a certain dated predictability to the exchanges depicted and, later, analyzed. Director Keisuke Toyoshima lines up as many surviving participants in the debate, as well as people with academic skin in the game, in order to show us how momentous this event was, but in the end it feels more like a historical curiosity than a revelatory document.

Lire la suite : Philip Brasor, 19/03/2020. URL : https://philipbrasor.com/2020/03/19/review-mishima-the-last-debate/