Harakiri
Director: Fritz Lang
Year Released: 1919
Rating: 2.0
O-Take-San (Lil Dagover), the daughter of a daimyo (Paul Biensfeldt), meets with and falls in love with a European naval officer named Olaf (Niels Prien) who impregnates her ... and then leaves - years pass, she has his child and is loyal to him, but Olaf, back in Europe, marries another woman. Lang focuses most of his creative energy on the sets and costumes, leaving the screenplay - based on Madame Butterfly (but with names changed) - to be a secondary component to this: the result is sloppy storytelling with great period detail. Anyone vaguely familiar with the narrative should already know it's a Battered Woman concept - as O-Take-San is told at some point, Japanese girls have three virtues: they hear nothing, say nothing and see nothing. This is great for the guys, but not so much for the geishas in love.
