Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters
Paul Schrader · 1985
Paul Schrader’s 1985 film interweaves Yukio Mishima’s final day with biographical flashbacks and dramatisations of three of his novels, organised into four colour-coded chapters. Shot in Japan with a rigorous visual syntax, it privileges form over exposition, using John Bailey’s cinematography, Philip Glass’s score and Eiko Ishioka’s production design to render Mishima’s aesthetic absolutism as cinematic grammar. It was banned in Japan until 2025.
