Directed by: Ishirô Honda.
Written by: Ishirô Honda & Shigeru Kayama & Takeo Murata.
Starring: Akira Takarada (Hideto Ogata), Momoko Kôchi (Emiko Yamane), Akihiko Hirata (Daisuke Serizawa-hakase), Takashi Shimura (Kyohei Yamane-hakase), Fuyuki Murakami (Professor Tanabe),
It’s
easy to forget that the original Japanese film Godzilla (or Gojira as it was
called there) was not just a cheesy monster movie, but a film born out of fear
and paranoia of the nuclear age made in country that had experienced the terror
of a nuclear bomb being dropped on them first hand. The Godzilla franchise
quickly morphed into the cheesy (and poorly dubbed in North America) monster
movies everyone remembers – and the monster was so popular itself, that
Godzilla was often the good guy, protecting Japan from some other giant monsters
that wanted to destroy it. That’s the Godzilla that most people remember. The
original film however is quite disturbing and scary – even when viewed today.
Godzilla
opens with two Japanese boats going missing – being destroyed and catching on
fire while out at sea (this was inspired by true events, when a Japanese boat
got too close to an American hydrogen bomb test). No one knows what happened –
but some elders blame an ancient creature known as Godzilla – but are dismissed
as believing in a myth. Soon though they cannot be dismissed. Godzilla is real
– a giant, spiky backed, fire breathing dinosaur who lays waste to Japan,
before returning to the sea – but he returns again and again.
The
monster is an obvious metaphor for the nuclear bomb. He lays waste to Japanese
cities the same way a bomb would lay waste to them – and he’s just as
unstoppable. A normal creature could be killed – but Godzilla seems
invulnerable. He’s able to absorb radiation so what kills most only fuels
Godzilla. It isn’t just in the destruction that Godzilla can kill – as we see
in a disturbing sequence in a Japanese hospital, where many of the victims are
there with radiation poisoning. Godzilla can kill you any number of ways – even
if you do come into direct contact with him.
It is
in sequences like that hospital scene – and another later sequence that
involves a children’s choir singing – that Godzilla retains its power to shock
and sadden. This is a nation dealing with the consequences of nuclear
explosions – man created the bomb that created Godzilla – now Godzilla is going
to make them pay for that. It’s here that the film becomes more than just a
monster movie, but something deeper and more resonant – sadder and more
shocking. All too often in movies today, whole cities are destroyed, building
collapse and in reality if those things happened thousands would die, but the
movies gloss over their own implications. The original Godzilla doesn’t – it
looks at the consequences of what happens in the film.
There
are human characters in the film as well – mainly scientists, including one
played by Akira Kurosawa regular Takashi Shimura, who doesn’t want to kill
Godzilla – but wants to capture and study him. He has a daughter (Momoko Kochi)
who breaks off her engagement with another scientist (Akihiko Hirata) because
she loves someone else (Akira Takarada). It is the ex-fiancé who thinks he has
discovered a way that could kill Godzilla – although it requires them to unleash
an even more powerful weapon that he tries to keep secret. The implication is
simple – that the greater the weapons humanity makes, the even greater the next
one has to be in order to destroy it – creating a cycle in which the fate of
the world hangs in the balance.
I don’t
think the original Godzilla is a quite a masterpiece – it’s excellent, but not
flawless. For one thing, the human story is rather ham-fisted at times – the
love triangle at little obvious. I liked that the movie took the time to have
its human characters debate the implications of everything they are doing – and
what Godzilla means – but the emotional connection between the characters
doesn’t really work. I loved most of the sequences with Godzilla himself as he
destroys one thing after another – although they do start to blend together
somewhat. The monster itself though is stunning – with a sound that cannot be
improved on (I believe the sound he makes in the trailer to the latest remake
is the exact same one as in this movie – and that’s good because they couldn’t
improve on it). In many ways, Godzilla is a victim as well – he didn’t ask for
any of this to happen, and he’s only doing what comes naturally to him. If
humanity didn’t want something like Godzilla, they shouldn’t have created him.
Yet my
few misgivings aside, I think that mainly Godzilla still works. There is a
handmade quality to the film – and to the monster, who is just a man in a suit,
which makes his movements oddly human-like – that is in many ways more appealing
that non-stop CGI ever will be. I hope the new Godzilla is a good movie – but I
highly doubt it will be better than the original.
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