Harakiri (1919) - Fritz Lang

This is one of the first films directed by the giant Fritz Lang, specifically the fourth feature film, and all in its first year of artistic existence the seventh art, all in 1919, certainly a fruitful year, a transcendental and providential year in German cinema, and in the classic cinema, in the cinema in its totality . It is, again, an atypical and unique film and the varied filmography of this huge author, located right in the middle of the two films that composed the frustrated adventure of The Spiders, and that, just like the two pictures, both fatures mentioned, is based on exotic elements, because if before were the elements of the old Inca Empire, a bit of Mexico and even Asia, this time the director focuses exclusively on the Asian country of Japan, with all its solemnity. Then the great Lang is the well-known story of Madame Butterfly, which would bring the immortal Giacomo Puccini to the opera, in which a beautiful Japanese woman, of deep social and moral commitments with her culture, sees her father commit harakiri, commits suicide after protecting his daughter from a Buddhist monk; she will fall in love with a foreign man, they get married, but he must return to Europe. The girl stays, pregnant, waits him for four years, he finally returns, but he does it with a new European wife.

        

To Japan returns from a trip Daimyo Tokuyawa (Paul Biensfeldt), received by his daughter O-Take-San (Lil Dagover), their happiness is interrupted by a Buddhist monk (Georg John), he wishes the girl, and, rejected, tries force her to become a priestess; father and daughter refuse. At this, Tokuyawa then receives a gift from the emperor, a dagger that means that he must take his own life in 24 hours; he obeys, he commits harakiri. Then, European visitors arrive, and one of them, Olaf J. Anderson (Niels Prien), invades a sacred forest, forbidden to a foreigner, meets O-Take-San, who protects him. She, now turned into a geisha, is offered afterwards to the stranger, he is explained that, if he desires her as a spouse, he must marry her for 999 days. Hey agrees, they marry, they live in secret, the monk finds them, envies their happiness, but Olaf must return to Europe, promising to return soon. Time passes quickly, a child born of his romance is now four years old, the monk longs for the time to come to O-Take-San to be free, she must pay for her freedom, or return with him to the temple. She is helped by Prince Matahari (Meinhart Maur), who courts her, but she is loyal to Olaf, awaits him, while the monk demands she returns to the temple, tries to kidnap her son. Finally he returns, married to another woman, and O-Take-San makes a fatal decision then.

The extraordinary German filmmaker would close the first year of his unforgettable cinematographic career with the present film, the feature film that now occupies us, the fourth work of that year, we are about to celebrate a century of those days, a century since that old so. Those were years of a Fritz Lang who, after completing the first part of The Spiders, The Golden Lake, began fruitfully, with all four films mentioned in the same year, 1919, his debut year, and they feel like twinned films, with certain common edges. Also, since Lang's first two films are currently considered lost, the two parts of The Spiders and this film, in the middle of both, complete the first trio of feature films, therefore, that we have of the German. It is more than likely that those have been worked at some point, even simultaneously these four feature films, and that may be the origin of these common edges mentioned, as would be the case of the exotic theme, the characters, the places, or at least the sets that represent those places. Taking advantage of the sets of certain segments of The Spiders that took place in Asia, the director manages to capture the oriental environments, in this way the filmmaker serenely portrays the solemn Japanese environments, brimming with respect, tranquility, rectitude, the sets and costumes of the Oriental culture are portrayed in a pleasant way. It feels a good job to get those decorations, with those ornaments, in the dresses, in the details of the temples and other rooms, a positive element in the film in terms of setting, decoration and costumes, especially considering that it was a film shot in studio, which did not reach the displacements to the same area of ​​the actions. Again, a novel Lang already shows that he has developed sufficiency in the staging, he has seriousness to adapt a rich, complex work, of exotic elements, of a wealth that transcends artistic disciplines, a literary, musical, dramatic, cinematographic classic. Lang is ready for a few years after producing his biggest contributions to the cinema, shortly after the corset will be removed, all his genius will be released.

The road to great masterpieces is being leveled, film by film, the first features by the master were flowing, who continues polishing his style, the great moment is expedited, the master learned as fruitfully as quickly his craft, in order to be able to generate this picture. A picture which is a serious work, but we can definitely say that the best was yet to come, for the filmmaker and the world of cinema, was just the fourth feature film by one of the greatest filmmakers that ever existed. The immortal master gives us one more proof, a preview, a proem from his youth, of the versatility that he would never stop exhibiting throughout his career, since exotic themes would never fail to attract him, as evidenced by the films he would make decades later , in the 50s, the diptych of The Tiger of Esnapur and The Indian Tomb, both of 1959. It is then a unique film, at the beginning of his career, which makes us understand from another perspective that great variety in styles, that versatility which Lang always showed throughout his filmography. Thus, and with that prolegomena, we are introduced into a world where honor is the priority, compliance with the rules and commitments that society establishes, where it is better to die with honor than to live with dishonor, a powerful determination that will lead to a tragic end. Is a story that concentrates a lot of Asian culture, Japanese culture, a classic, a very Japanese story, a story of intense feelings, intense sufferings, a universal classic of various arts, which seduced even the great Puccini. Speaking of the picture and its qualities properly, there is a factor that also keeps repeating, in this and the initial movies of Lang, something normal, and this is that, after a third of the film, we can notice that it is not a feature that overflows technical virtuosity, Lang apparently kept all that prodigious visual explosion, all that technical domain, for his expressionist moment, for the most powerful stage in that aspect of his career, already just a few years away. Similarly, there is another common factor to the films of this era of Lang, again, something completely normal, were the years of the liberation of the camera, and therefore the cinematographic language, I mean the development of the camera, is a static camera mostly, lacking movement, and, therefore, lacking in greater expressivity.

Therefore, we have again a history of conventional treatment, filmed and structured in a conventional, linear way, it is a flat picture in its language and in its narration, as the story itself portrayed, linearity is not broken, there are no greater virtues nor brilliance techniques, actions, and the follow-up of them, are the center of everything. But always, or at least almost always, there are exceptions, and there are those exceptions with the sequences in the garden where they live, O-Take-San and Olaf, The Temple of Tea, between the most pleasant sequences, the best achieved, the different, for everything in them unfolded, all in that beautiful garden, where the symbol of peaches blossoms. In that way, in the middle of the homogeneous conventional treatment of the movie, we will find some scenes, those sequences, where the tender love flows between the frustrated lovers, moments adorned with the most pleasant frames, some frames that are enriched when finally that camera shows a certain mobility, a certain movement, an unbeatable moment certainly to awaken in its warm dynamism, enriching those sequences, finally we see sequences of a treatment, of a sensitivity different from the others. We will see again folowing orders by Lang Lil Dagover, being she protagonist in The Spiders, picture also very linked was to Lang, project whose accomplishment frustrated that Lang directed The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920); actors still not very renowned participated in the German director's films then, and in this film the greatest acting achievement of the Dagover is not perceived. It is not a film in which the performances feel particularly outstanding, perhaps the story did not demand much at the histrionic level, but in any case there is an excesive lukewarmness in the interpretations of the protagonists. It is a film that was considered lost for years, and not many decades ago was found, in a Dutch film library, giving to it the respective restoration and putting into circulation; it is therefore a recovered film, as there have been other cases, films, greater or lesser extent, which were thought to be completely lost, or complete versions that were lost. Those are cases of lost and recovered cinematographic jewels, that make us think that there is still hope of recovering some other of those silent wonders that are considered missing. As we see, there are reasons to appreciate this film, one of the first films whose history and development is fully Japanese, everything happens, it is portrayed, on Japanese soil, with the element of the geisha, the priests of Buddha, and all solemnity is captured, that tenacity, that commitment, that love and that suffering of the immortal and tragic story of Madame Butterfly, another one of those silent cinema films needed to see.