November 25, 1970. Yukio Mishima, the acclaimed Japanese author, faces his final day. Meanwhile, interrupting flashbacks intertwine Mishima’s past with scenes from his works, revealing the inner turmoil and contradictions of a man who attempted an impossible harmony between self, art, and society.

For the centenary of Yukio Mishima’s birth, we’re revisiting one of cinema’s greatest experiments in biopic form. Drawing from the Japanese iconoclast’s life and art, director Paul Schrader harmonizes a series of fractured sketches into a ravishing, expressionist elegy for violent transcendence.