A-Directed by Takashi Yamazaki Starring Ryunosuke Kamiki and Minami Hamabe Review by Jon Kissel |  |
One of the most irritating critiques of Oppenheimer was its omission of the Japanese victims of the atomic bomb. Christopher Nolan chooses to omit any images of their suffering beyond on off-screen newsreel. It’s easy to imagine the worse version of the film that does include those images, just as it’s easy to conjure up the opposite critiques. How dare a white Englishman appropriate Japanese misery for use in his blockbuster? The best people to deal with the aftermath of the atomic bombings of the Japanese are the Japanese themselves, a truism that’s been enacted over and over again in countless movies made by Japanese directors, up to and including Godzilla, one of Japan’s most enduring 20th century cultural exports. Godzilla Minus One continues in this long tradition as the latest version of the lumbering nuke-metaphor became an international hit and a critical darling. Director Takashi Yamazaki expertly balances big-screen kaiju thrills while exploring and purging the strain of suicidal nationalism that infected Japan during World War II.
The film’s title pays homage to the post-war neo-realism of Germany and Italy that placed those devastated countries at year zero. In that vein, Godzilla doesn’t show up til deep into the film to set Japan back one year from zero, with the exception of a brief prologue. At a lonely airstrip in the Pacific, when defeat is looming, Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) lands his plane, though as a kamikaze pilot, he was not expected to return. Shikishima gawps skyward as the airstrip is attacked by a juvenile Godzilla. He has Godzilla in his gunsights at one point, but he’s too afraid to pull the trigger before being knocked unconscious. The war is over shortly after, and Shikishima returns to a Tokyo in ruins. His parents are both dead, but their home is still standing. From this meager position of safety, he’s able to take in a young woman named Noriko (Minami Hamabe) and the baby that she rescued. To support this found family, he’s hired as a minesweeper, but there are things more dangerous than mines in the ocean. Godzilla, enlarged by nuclear testing, has been spotted near Japan, and he and his crew are tasked with locating and delaying while the government takes secret precautions. They survive their initial encounter, but there’s no stopping the giant monster from making landfall where Shikishima, desperate to cure his survivor’s guilt, is willing to do whatever it takes to stop Godzilla.
The big surprise with Godzilla Minus One is how moving it is. It’s strange to feel romance in a postwar environment, especially within a formerly belligerent country, but there’s the sense that the world is starting over in the Tokyo of the film. There’s an incredible solidarity in the first half hour, where every living person is experiencing some level of immiseration or grief or both and therefore there’s an opportunity in every interaction to dramatically help a neighbor. The baby that Noriko and Shikishima take care of is pressed into the latter’s arms in the local ramshackle market, and he takes several beats to consider the possibility of taking care of this child and the inverse of what will happen if he doesn’t. A brassy Sakura Ando plays a neighbor who lost her children in a bombing, and now takes in the neighbor kids at every opportunity. Everyone has an open hand towards their community, even though it’s not holding much.
These opening scenes are still humming in the viewer’s ears as the film contrives a reason to make the government incapable of mustering a counter-force to Godzilla, and the locals have to take on the job themselves. Another recent Godzilla adaptation, Shin Godzilla, centered the bureaucratic response to a monster invasion, but here, there’s no government to be found. This gives the film room for rousing speeches that are about the people transitioning themselves from order-following conscripts to decision-making citizens, where the value is placed on living and creating for your country instead of sacrificing one’s life for it. Godzilla is still a metaphor for what was done to Japan, but Godzilla Minus One surpasses its predecessors by also intimating at what Japan did, and how the assembled kaiju-fighters can prevent it from reoccurring.
Godzilla Minus One contains all that meaning and feeling while also delivering what everyone walks into a kaiju movie expecting to see. Yamazaki’s action scenes are tense and cover the minimum requirements of conveying scale and realism. The bar for Japanese kaiju movies is so low that as long as the zippers on the costume aren’t showing, it’s acceptable, and Godzilla Minus One is far above that. The fire breath is especially well-conceived here, befitting the IMAX screens that the film played on. However, it’s the human element that is most successful. The American equivalent of kaiju movies are spent waiting for the actors to get through their expository scenes so King Kong can get back to punching monsters, but here, while the monster action is good, the film is strongest when the screen is monster-free. When the atmosphere and context is as intriguing as it is here, Godzilla is an accentuating spice on a dish that’s great without him. A-
The big surprise with Godzilla Minus One is how moving it is. It’s strange to feel romance in a postwar environment, especially within a formerly belligerent country, but there’s the sense that the world is starting over in the Tokyo of the film. There’s an incredible solidarity in the first half hour, where every living person is experiencing some level of immiseration or grief or both and therefore there’s an opportunity in every interaction to dramatically help a neighbor. The baby that Noriko and Shikishima take care of is pressed into the latter’s arms in the local ramshackle market, and he takes several beats to consider the possibility of taking care of this child and the inverse of what will happen if he doesn’t. A brassy Sakura Ando plays a neighbor who lost her children in a bombing, and now takes in the neighbor kids at every opportunity. Everyone has an open hand towards their community, even though it’s not holding much.
These opening scenes are still humming in the viewer’s ears as the film contrives a reason to make the government incapable of mustering a counter-force to Godzilla, and the locals have to take on the job themselves. Another recent Godzilla adaptation, Shin Godzilla, centered the bureaucratic response to a monster invasion, but here, there’s no government to be found. This gives the film room for rousing speeches that are about the people transitioning themselves from order-following conscripts to decision-making citizens, where the value is placed on living and creating for your country instead of sacrificing one’s life for it. Godzilla is still a metaphor for what was done to Japan, but Godzilla Minus One surpasses its predecessors by also intimating at what Japan did, and how the assembled kaiju-fighters can prevent it from reoccurring.
Godzilla Minus One contains all that meaning and feeling while also delivering what everyone walks into a kaiju movie expecting to see. Yamazaki’s action scenes are tense and cover the minimum requirements of conveying scale and realism. The bar for Japanese kaiju movies is so low that as long as the zippers on the costume aren’t showing, it’s acceptable, and Godzilla Minus One is far above that. The fire breath is especially well-conceived here, befitting the IMAX screens that the film played on. However, it’s the human element that is most successful. The American equivalent of kaiju movies are spent waiting for the actors to get through their expository scenes so King Kong can get back to punching monsters, but here, while the monster action is good, the film is strongest when the screen is monster-free. When the atmosphere and context is as intriguing as it is here, Godzilla is an accentuating spice on a dish that’s great without him. A-
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