Japanese film analysis of Double Suicide and Hanabi

Japanese Film

Defining Reality in Double Suicide: When Traditional and New Storytelling Methods Combine

Masahiro Shinoda's 1969 film Double Suicide recounts a tale of a two lovers who ultimately vow to be together in death, as they cannot fully be together in life. Though a common theme, this film tells the story in a decidedly uncommon way, utilizing elements of traditional Japanese puppet theatre and other Japanese storytelling techniques, combined with moments of more modern naturalistic and cinematic storytelling. The result is a compelling film that leads the audience not only on an exploration of the themes in inherent to the film's content, but also on an investigation of the implications of the film's construction and presentation.

The use of the puppet theatre and ongoing non-realistic sets in the film Double Suicide help to emphasize the artificiality of the piece, while at the same time making the emotions and tragedy of the film as a whole more pronounced. It is not as though the audience would ever mistake what they are witnessing as reality, or as anything other than a story told through film, but the puppet theatre and several other elements that appear throughout the film serve as constant reminder that this story is unreal -- a fiction. This does not make the action any less intense or reduce the emotional content and value of the film, however, and in fact it does quite the opposite. By emphasizing the fact that this is fake, it creates a greater sense of generalization and familiarity -- because the audience is constantly reminded that these are only representations of people, not real individuals, it is easier to see echoes of emotions, actions, desires, and motives that all human beings can identify with.

In addition, the puppet theatre serves to imply that the actors are not in full control, and possibly that the characters themselves are not even in control of circumstances or their actions. On the first level, this provides yet another level of the emphasis of artifice that exists in the film, as it demonstrates that the bodies actually being viewed are not meant to be bodies in control, but rather are very much like puppets in that they have been instructed to perform in a certain way, in order to convey other people. That is, the actors are substitutions for puppets in a very real sense -- they are the puppets of the cinematic storytelling mode, and represent the changes that have occurred in Japanese storytelling as traditions have grown old. On a deeper level, when the characters themselves are seen as puppets, this becomes a statement about the lack of real control that exists in human lives. Through both the puppet theatre and the use of the kuroko, there is a heavy influence by a force of fate on the directions of the character's lives, such that their own actions are seemingly out of their control. This makes their ultimate tragedy and sacrifice all the more poignant.