Double Suicide

Double Suicide 

The movie Double Suicide is an adaptation of a bunraku play called The Love Suicides at Amijima by Chikamatsu Monzaemon. Bunraku is a traditional puppet play and the director, Masahiro Shinoda, creatively gives nods the origin of the play by having puppets appear at the beginning and a person, presumably the director, describing how he wants the graveyard scene to go. The movie initially starts out with puppets and soon is replaced by live people, mixing both traditional and modern media. The story is about Jihei, a poor paper merchant who destroys his family as he pursues his doom love for Kohaku, a courtesan. 

The movie is a follows the story faithfully with having people dressed in traditional all-black stage hands to demonstrates some of the stage direction in play like when his wife, Otosan, starts taking out all the clothes for Jihei, her husband, to sell for money to redeem Kohaku. However, the Chanter, the Japanese equivalent of the Greek chorus, paints a much more romantic scene than portrayed in the film. 

Chanter: Her encouragement lends him strength; the invocations to Amida carried by the wind urge a final prayer. Namu Amida Butsu. He thrust the savage sword. Stabbed she falls backward, despite his staying hand, and struggles in terrible pain... Her life fades away like an unfinished dream at dawning. He arranges her body with her head to the north, face to the west, lying on her right side, and throws his cloak over her. He turns away, at last,  unable to exhaust with tears his grief over parting.... "Believers and unbelievers will equally share in the divine grace," the voices proclaim, and at the final words, Jihei jumps from the sluice gate. 

The movie makes their death seem ugly and unromantic. Kohaku repeatedly says that she does not want to die. The fatal wound is ugly and grotesque. The movie ends with fisherman finding their bodies; while the play ends with the story spreading and how romantic the act of double suicide.   Another interesting note is that the same actress both play wife and doomed love interest, so metaphorically she represents the two forces that tug at Jihei: Duty, represented by Otosan, and Passion, represented by Kohaku. It's not only physical beauty that draws Jihei to Kohaku, but what she represents to him and ultimately what ends up destroying him.