It's Christmas time, a time for tradition, a time for comfort and joy, and a warm glow of. . . something or other. The warm glow in the case of Takashi Yamazaki's Godzilla Minus One (technically Godzilla XXXVII, but who's counting?) probably comes from radioactive slime, or perhaps a burning building, but it still counts.

Just where we're at with Godzilla currently is more complicated than at most points in the last seventy years (for, yes, this is the official anniversary film): the film rights to the big feller are jointly held by Toho, his long-time managers, and Legendary Pictures in the States. The agreement between them is such that they can't both release a Godzilla film in the same year, which is why Minus One is technically out nearly a year early: Legendary have another Kong/Godzilla team-up film, The New Empire, lined up for April of 2024.

Yamazaki has a largely blank canvas to work with, anyway, as the last live-action Japanese Godzilla film was Shin-Godzilla in 2016, a quite radical updating of the story with much more of a political angle than usual. That's never felt like a film with a lot of potential for a sequel and so it is not a great surprise that the series has opted for another of its regular resets.

The story gets underway on Odo Island, in the Pacific, in 1945: everyone knows the outcome of the war is not in doubt, but the fighting continues pointlessly. Young pilot Koichi Shikashima (Ryunosuki Kamiki) lands here when his plane develops engine trouble, or so he claims – or could it be he is having second thoughts about signing up as a kamikaze pilot? It all becomes a little academic when the island comes under attack from a reptilian sea monster the size of a bus, apparently known to the locals as 'Godzilla'. Koichi has the chance to kill Godzilla with the cannon on his plane, but freezes under pressure and the garrison is almost totally wiped out.

The scene shifts; we find Koichi back in a ruined Tokyo in late 1945 – society has been shattered, with families and buildings destroyed. But slowly new connections are formed – somewhat against his will, Koichi ends up taking in a young woman, Noriko (Minami Hamabe), and an orphaned baby girl she is looking after. It is a proxy family of sorts, but Koichi finds himself unable to move on from the war and think about a better future. Even the job he lands, working to clear the sea minefields surrounding the Japanese islands, feels like a relic of the war.

And then the Americans test an atomic bomb at Bikini Atoll, with unanticipated side-effects as far as the local wildlife are concerned. Fairly soon something radioactive is heading for the Japanese mainland, eating everything in its path, and Koichi and his shipmates are somewhat surprised to find themselves the first line of defence against a menace which he may have encountered before. . .

It sounds very much like any Godzilla movie you care to mention from the last seventy years – and, while there are relatively few sequences featuring the big guy, when they arrive they are astonishingly good, revealing that Yamazaki completely understands how to sell this kind of sequence. There's also a clear influence from western cinema, too – an early skirmish with Godzilla pursuing Koichi's tiny fishing boat is an obvious Jaws homage, while there's a bit of a Dunkirk influence informing the climax, too. But the highlight of the film is a pure homage to Ishiro Honda, director of the original film: it's a normal day in Ginza when suddenly sirens start to wail and loudspeakers inform everyone they should probably head for the hills. Completely unexpectedly, Akira Ifukube's classic march crashes in on the soundtrack as a superbly-rendered Godzilla proceeds to flatten half the city. Intelligent direction which ensures the focus here is on the human characters as much as the monster means this has emotional heft as well as spectacle – though this is here too. The sequence concludes with an audacious composition of Godzilla, roaring and triumphant, with a swelling mushroom cloud in the background.

Here I think we must consider the politics and symbolism of the Godzilla series a little – as is quite well known, the original film started as a knock-off of Eugene Lourie's The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, before gaining unexpected power and resonance as a metaphor for the atom bombing of Japan in 1945. Even a few years ago this was an unmentionable topic in Japanese society; the official Japanese position remained that the country was a victim of foreign aggression. (All of this largely fell by the wayside as the series shifted into the realms of tokusatsu camp, of course.)

Even in Minus One there are hardly any explicit references to what brought about the end of the war – but the image of Godzilla and the mushroom cloud is a striking and significant innovation. Despite that, in this film Godzilla is less emblematic of the atom bomb than a walking metaphor for the Second World War and its aftereffects – something devastating to Japan and its people, which they must find a way to overcome somehow. Hence one of the film's more dubious plot points, which has Douglas MacArthur informing the Japanese people that the US is unable to help them fight off Godzilla as they are on manoeuvres against the Soviet Union – it's excusable because it enables the film's moral premise, which is the importance of providing closure after the war.

This sets up a climax in which plucky war veterans in decommissioned navy ships must find a way of killing Godzilla before he returns to finish destroying Tokyo. There's no mad science here, no Oxygen Destroyer; it all feels grounded and plausible for the 1940s setting. It also proves to be genuinely exciting and tense – normally the bits where the army and navy try to fight Godzilla just feel like a genre convention the film has to get past before the fight with Ghidorah or Gigan or whoever, but this one is a worthy climax. I would still say that at this point it is exceptionally difficult to make a truly great Godzilla film without another monster in it, but Yamazaki seems to manage it without breaking a sweat.

Nevertheless, some purists may find the long gaps between Godzilla sequences not to their taste – while the tone here is just as serious as in Shin-Godzilla. However, it's the focus on the human characters, their situation and relationships, which gives the film its texture and heart. It probably helps Yamazaki glide past some of the more pulpy elements of the plot – for instance, one of the people on Koichi's boat turns out to be the top boffin who ends up in charge of the stop-Godzilla effort (an engaging performance from Hidetaka Yoshioka). The special effects are hugely impressive, especially considering this film was made on a comparatively tiny budget – less than 10% of that of the most recent American Godzilla film – but it's the investment in the characters and their world that makes this film so good. There are more serious Godzilla films and ones which are largely just spectacular fantasy – as far the former kind go, Godzilla Minus One is one of the best ever, and challenging for a place near the top of the list of the greatest Godzilla films of any kind. It certainly puts the vast majority of recent English language fantasy and SF films in the shade. Highly recommended.

Awix

25.12.23 Front Page

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