Himiko (Masahiro Shinoda, 1974)

I've been craving to see this film a long time, and I was greatly rewarded: in Himiko (1974), master of Japan's visual avant-garde Masahiro Shinoda carefully crafted a gorgeous-looking piece of historical reconstruction taking into account the various traditional accounts on the semi-legendary person of shamanic queen ruling over Yamataikoku during third century A.D. Various and sometimes conflicting accounts from Japanese and Chinese sources with little archaeological evidence from the period are nevertheless conciliated into a satisfying whole here, and backed with the portrayal of rituals and objects from Jōmon/Yayoi periods. Not mentioning the beautiful composition behind every frame, the fortunate election of color, location and symmetry from start to end, all of it backed with striking acting coming from everyone. And there are some harsh scenes here: Shinoda not only recreates the dignified and ritualized exchanges between people of Yamataikoku's court (talking in the recreated tone of ancient literature as preserved) but also the brutal behavior of the isolated dwellers of ancient clans in premodern times, from rape and kidnapping of other clan's women to pretty graphic ritual mutilations imposed by the harsh rules of Shintō purity and the authority of an emerging state-like organization of society. 

Shinoda's background and previous work reappear here too, as expected: some features of Himiko remind us of previous masterpieces as 心中天網島 [Shinjū: Ten no amijima/Double Suicide] (1969), adapting Chikamatsu's classic bunraku play, and 無頼漢 [Buraikan] (1970), assisted by Shūji Terayama, no less. Namely, we get some phantasmagoric actors acting as puppeteers and the striking contrasts of color resulting of said collaboration. As many of Shinoda's works, Himiko constitutes a reworked personal adaptation from a classical work of Japanese literature, as 美しさと哀しみと[With Beauty and Sorrow] (1965) or 桜の森の満開の下[Under the Blossoming Cherry Trees]  (1975). This constituted a branch of creative work coming from Shinoda, coexisting with other noir or genuinely avant garde works. Yet, I'd consider Himiko to be a quite exceptional film, even as a reworked classic: very rarely one director attempts to recreate ancient (not medieval) Japan on the screen, and there are quite few attempts to portray shamanic or ritual practices in their context aside from those of horror/exploitation movies, remarkable as they are.

In a totally different tone, and only 4 years after Shinoda's Himiko, Kon Ichikawa also portrayed her, this time as a villain, in his film adaptation 火の鳥 [Hi no Tori] (1978) of a popular manga by Osamu Tezuka. Being Ichikawa's movie a charming fairytale as it is, it nevertheless creates interesting associations between Himiko and the religious figure of Amaterasu, considered to be Yamato's ujigami or Clan Goddess, personification of the Sun and reverd on Ise. Yet, Ichikawa portrays a direct identification between the two, giving Himiko a brother named Susano-O (the chaotic and untamed brother of the goddess, according to the Kojiki); Shinoda, on the other hand, mantains them as separate figures, and indeed Amaterasu is not mentioned at all: Himiko happens to be the shaman, medium and priestess of the Sun God (or Goddess, as 神 [kami] has no gender), symbolically represented by an actual bronze mirror which would be considered as its dwelling-place or spirit-seat, 神体|神体 [shintai]. According to different sources, Amaterasu would appear later in history, as Yamataikoku consolidated into an actual military power and then created fixed spaces of worship. Therefore, Shinoda's approach seems to be almost academic here. Noteworthy the importance of females in Japan's ancient shamanic traditions, still relevant today in striking contrast with official Shintō and Buddhist priesthood, usually defined as male in modern times.

Himiko's plot explicitly tells a history of rivalry between different clans, simply defined as The Sun People, The Land People and The Mountain People, each one serving gods relevant to their lifestyle and culture. Old Chinese sources defined Himiko as it follows:

Remaining unmarried, she occupied herself with magic and sorcery and bewitched the populace. Thereupon they placed her on the throne. She kept one thousand female attendants, but few people saw her. There was only one man who was in charge of her wardrobe and meals and acted as the medium of communication. She resided in a palace surrounded by towers and stockades with the protection of armed guards. The laws and customs were strict and stern

Almost everything is preserved in the film, even this lone male attendant, named as Nashime by Shinoda, and somewhat of a mastermind. Setting takes place just before Himiko occupies the throne, as the previous king is still alive and so are his sons Mimaki, skilled warrior, and Ikume, tactical and scholarly. Yamataikoku's stability gets disrupted by traveler Takehiko, who starts a romance involving Himiko and fascinates her with tales about the lands across the sea: this prompts Himiko to switch her clan's god, adopting a Land God instead and advocating friendship with the Wei kingdom in China. This risky movement sparks discussions in the court, earning her the animosity and reserve of both Mimaki and Ikume: her position gets diminished for the first time, and Nashime stays alert in case she needs his assistance to overthrow the current king, something he actually ends up doing. Some of his close courtesan and followers are buried alive along with him. It is discussed if this particular human burial happened at this precise moment, but records from Wei state that when Himiko herself died:

Over a hundred male and female attendants followed her to the grave

This practice seems to have been common in China as it was in ancient Egypt also, until the use of anthropomorphic objects came along to substitute said servants. Yet, estimates of the burial of massive groups of people, such as that attributed to Gengis Khan, may have been exaggerated in order to not forget them. Other specifically Japanese rituals involving burying people alive would be 人柱 [hitobashira] and later buddhist practices among followers of esoteric Buddhism which had to be banned by the Meiji government. But here I digress.

Around the same time Himiko seizes power, Takehiko cheats on her with the beautiful handmaiden named Adahime, originally a Land God people as him. As Himiko notices this, he gets banished from the kingdom, they rip off his fingernails, and get his face tattooed with the shame sign. She returns to the Sun God with even more fervor, and prepares for war as Takehiko and Adahime secretly prepare vengeance in their exile, returning with the Land  and Mountain people's army in order to conquer Yamataikoku. They are convinced of their victory by virtue of having stolen part of the sacred clay of Himiko's temple. Mimaki and Ikume ready their clanspeople to fight the invasion, yet its revealed in conversations among them that they prepare to turn their little kingdom into an empire, conquering their neighbors and imposing them the solar cult by creating sanctuaries in their anexed territories in order for the Sun God to be prayed and thus respect the imperial authority. That is, absorbing the rest of Japan's tribes into a single Yamato. During the battle, Yamatai's people ring a quite known  bell from Japanese Yayoi-era, a Dōtaku. This is Shinoda's following academic theories about these mysterious yet beautifully decorated artifacts, which state that these bells were only used to warn about military incursions, as Japanese people did not raise cattle (the only known reason for these kind of bells in China or Korea). Stunning scene that of the Land's people bringing their ujigami to battle, depicted as a kind of giant red serpent, in order to scare Yamataikoku's soldiers.

Yet, superior weaponry and organization by Yamatai overwhelms the other tribes, and they lose at great expense. Both Takehiko and Adahime die, and Mimaki becomes the new ruler at all effects, as Himiko is kept in secret by Nashime, who tries to maintain her as the spiritual support of the new strongly military rule of Mimaki. Yet, as he personally distrusts Himiko since she got to be in love with a simple man (thus distorting her insight as a mere medium of the kami), Nashime names a new oracular priestess, a little girl named Toyo. She had manifested shamanic insight too, and had made a terrible omen concerning Mimaki, stating that his rule would be short due to assassination. Even for this Shinoda took the ancient records of Wei as material for his recreation:

Then a king was placed on the throne, but the people would not obey him. Assassination and murder followed; more than one thousand were thus slain. A relative of Himiko named Iyo [壹與], a girl of thirteen, was [then] made queen and order was restored. Chêng issued a proclamation to the effect that Iyo was the ruler.

Thus Shinoda's adaptation ends, with Himiko herself dying in a rather abstract way open to interpretation: at the hands of the bizarre-looking mountain dwellers who really seem to be meta-characters out of the movie until this very moment, and remaind us the black-dressed puppeteers of Double Suicide. Their outfit and characterization, as deformed people dressing shamanic attire, unable to speak and constantly contorting their bodies covered in white powder are undeniably based after 暗黒舞踏 (ankoku butō), part of the renewal of Japanese modern dance and acting of the 1950's and very influential at the time. Even though a modern technique, Shinoda really integrates it in the context of shamanic avatars living in the mountains, as he does with some strikingly modern settings integrated here for sure. The abstract and minimalist palace of Yamataikoku would be a strange feat in such period and location: early Japanese architecture was made of wood and different kind of straw (even Ise's sanctuary), reserving excavation and carvings to primitive burial structures. Plus, the stone garden where Himiko performs as medium did not exist in Japan at the time, and the geometrical simplicity of the sacred clay is unlikely as well. In fact, it all feels clean-cut, almost surreal in both symmetry and simplicity. Yet, these details, entirely reimagined by Shinoda are in fact a virtue of the film, presenting an ages-old legend in a surprisingly stylized and engaging way. 

One can easily enjoy this movie as a tale of early Japanese kingdoms at war even if having trouble dealing with arthouse films (that is, actual films) and its tempo, yet to really appreciate the effort and passion Shinoda and his crew put into this, the difficult conciliation of rigorous research and modern portrayal of ambiguous events, and the effort in actually considering religious features of early Japan (often totally unknown to modern Japanese), one has to read a little bit.