Conflagration (1959)

Yukio Mishima was a powerful presence in the postwar literary world of Japan, and director Kon Ichikawa's adaptation of one of his finest novels, a reimagining of the true story of a young monk who burned a sacred temple to the ground in Kyoto in 1950, is also one of the director's best efforts. ENJO stars Raizô Ichikawa as Goichi Mizoguchi, an aspiring Buddhist monk who becomes involved in the temple that was owned by his father. Through a series of flashbacks framed as a police interrogation, Mizoguchi unravels the story of his obsession with the temple beginning with his childhood. Unattractive, impoverished, and a stutterer, the boy takes refuge in the temple, a place of ineffable beauty and tranquillity. When the temple must be sold to pay off debts incurred during his father's protracted illness, Mizoguchi insults his mother, and his diatribe is intercut with the monk's childhood memories of the father explaining to the boy the names of the various temple floors. Finally, Mizoguchi's revulsion for the corruption he believes has overtaken the temple pushes him over the brink, compelling him to react violently. Actor Ichikawa is typically excellent in this penetrating exploration of religious monomania taken to the extreme.