Gojira (1954)
Dir: Ishirô Honda
*****
Not the camp classic you thought it was. An original story that is part horror, part political, that shows the abuse of the people caused by weapons of mass destruction with more than just a man in a suit. This was a labor intensive act of love that had many firsts for the Japan film industry. The first use of story boarding in a Japan film. The creation of the monster costume. The thematic showing of cultural changes and adaptation of Western ideals in Japan society. For me, this will be a timeless classic and one of the best films ever made.
1 comment:
I was born in 1953, so I grew up seeing the Raymond Burr version of Godzilla on black-and-white T.V. - I didn't see a man in a rubber suit - I saw a jauggernaut of a force of nature (or atomic mutant), sympathetic in his character, doing what any 400-foot radioactive monster would do - the theme music (a simple, classic Japanese pentatonic scale melody) has been with me all my life (makes for great metal-dirge interpretation) - all in all, a phenomenal and influential film, timeless in thematic terms, especially now, with homo-sapiens standing on the edge of extinction.
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