Conflagration: a competent critique of modern Japan and an unreal quest for beauty and purity

Kon Ichikawa, “Conflagration / Enjo” (1958)

Based on the novel “The Temple of the Golden Pavilion” (itself based on an actual incident) by notorious Japanese writer / actor / nationalist Yukio Mishima, this film is a character study of a young and idealistic if very flawed Buddhist acolyte in the throes of a spiritual and psychological crisis, and the behaviours that his crisis leads to, with all their tragic consequences. Goichi Mizoguchi (Raizo Ichikawa) comes from an unfortunate background: his parents have been custodians of a remote country Zen Buddhist temple that received few visitors, and to relieve the stress of poverty and isolation, Goichi’s father spoke frequently to his son of his desire for them both to visit the famous temple of the Golden Pavilion, the most beautiful object in Japan. However the elder Mizoguchi dies from illness and so Goichi journeys alone to become apprenticed as an acolyte to the head priest Dosen Tayama (Ganjiro Nakamura) who is a friend of his father’s. Though shy and suffering from a stutter, Goichi is accepted by Tayama. Tayama recognises that Goichi is diligent and has some good qualities, and hopes that the teenager will eventually succeed him as head priest: to that end, he arranges for Goichi to continue his schooling and then to attend the local university. While settling down at the temple, Goichi visits the Shukaku building, the actual focus of the temple complex, and realises that it indeed is a beautiful creation.

Goichi’s mother insinuates herself as a maid at the temple and starts to pressure her son to put his head down and tail up in the expectation that he will succeed Tayama, though there are other worthy apprentices also working at the temple. Over time, as Japan undergoes American military occupation and becomes Westernised, the temple becomes a tourist attraction, making good money, and the unworldly monks become corrupted by easy wealth and materialist desires. Tayama himself visits geishas (and gets a woman pregnant) and spends money in ways unbecoming of an austere Zen Buddhist monk. Mizoguchi’s only friend, the kindly Tsurukawa, dies in a horrible accident and his place is taken by the cynical Togari (Tatsuya Nakadai), a cripple who eggs on Mizoguchi to commit various misdemeanours that escalate in seriousness so as to offend Tayama enough that he will throw out Mizoguchi. But no matter how much Mizoguchi skips school and university, runs away, borrows money without paying back, spends his tuition fees on prostitutes or lies about accepting cigarettes from an American soldier for pushing his girlfriend and causing her to have a miscarriage, the head priest does nothing.

Eventually Mizoguchi, stressed by his mother’s demands and Togari’s manipulations, infuriated at Tayama’s silences and apparent inaction, and disappointed that the Shukaku building itself means nothing more to the monks and society at large as a money-making machine, vows to take drastic action: on a journey back to his former rural home, he remembers his father’s funeral and cremation, and there he makes the decision that will damn him for the rest of his life: he will destroy the Shukaku temple to preserve its beauty and purity from the defilements of materialism.

The film can be read as a critique of modern Japanese society, its obsession with money and materialism, and how such obsession corrupts Buddhist values. However Toyama still retains a conscience, and is troubled by his new double life: in that, there is the suggestion that no matter how corrupted and sinful one becomes, there is always the possibility of redemption if one repents and makes amends. Nakadai plays a significant role in undermining Mizoguchi with his cynicism and knowledge, but ends up a pathetic character. Mizoguchi himself, for all his idealism and potential, has a rotten core: having been bullied and spurned throughout his childhood for his stutter and background, he grows up with self-loathing and hatred, and fails to see that, in spite of their weaknesses and imperfections, Tayama and the other priests do mean well and want him to succeed.

Mizoguchi’s tragedy is that he is unable to overcome his dysfunctional family background, his resentment at his vulgar and sensuous mother for betraying his father and bullying him, and the flawed idealism, combined with revulsion for the physical senses, that both his parents inspired in him.

The bulk of the film is told in flashback form which enables significant events relevant to Mizoguchi’s final actions to be inserted into the narrative smoothly and help to escalate the tension and derangement that the young man suffers.

While the film is not very deep – Ichikawa left out much of the Zen philosophy of the novel so that the movie could appeal to a wide audience, and made his central character less conflicted and somewhat more bland than in the novel – it does a very good job of criticising Japanese society in the 1950s with its grasping nature and the potential loss of ethical values. Redemption though is always possible – but this makes the film’s final scene all the more devastating.