Sol

The beginning of this film is exceptionally dull, half an hour of Hirohito - in an excellent, intriguing performance by Issey Sogata - pottering around, surrounded by his overbearing courtiers. His servants appear genuinely awed by the God-like emperor and can hardly bow low enough to show their total subservience. Everything - buttoning a jacket, placing a knife and fork in his hands - is undertaken for the emperor.

In a curious similarity to Hitler's last days in the chaotic bunker in the recent film Downfall (2005), Hirohito is confined to his own bunker beneath his imperial palace in Tokyo. Yet, there is little sign of the war down here, just a series of dull, ill-lit yet nicely-furnished rooms, all wooden panelling and seemingly very quiet, in the aftermath of the atomic bombs. The strange thing is the almost entirely Westernised clothes and total banality of the emperor's life. Hirohito wanders around like an Edwardian gentleman, attired in exquisite tailoring, all top hat and fine suits, like Bertie Wooster without the humour.

Hirohito studies Darwin and makes a few minor reflections on his role in Japanese imperialism leading up to the war, and the nature of the beast, yet he is basically Chauncey Gardiner (Peter Selles) in the film Being There (1979), a sort of idiot-savant set free into a world of which he has little or no understanding. You just can't believe that Hirohito had any serious role in the whole affair.

Continuing the Darwinist motif, there are little surrealist sequences, dream-like glimpses into Hirohito's mind, with strange flying fish bombers and so forth. In these sections, the film's like a sort of Salvador Dali/Luis Buenuel/Hirohito war and bombing comb. This reminds me of the brilliant Terence Mallick film, The Thin Red Line (1998), with several US troops under-going similar experiences in an island paradise during the terrible war in the Pacific.

This is why I think the film works. The first meeting of Hirohito and MacArthur - in effect, the new emperor of Japan - is full of tension, a clash of two cultures, both incredibly nervous of each other. The two men start bonding and in one incredible moment of film, MacArthur and Hirohito have a sort of cigar kiss, the former lighting the emperor's cigar while puffing on his own, both engaged, head-to-head. It's like they're exchanging the fumes of victory and defeat. The embers. It is like an antidote to Bill Clinton's normal use of cigars.

They get along just fine, like Laurel and Hardy Go to Tokyo, or something. Or Will Hay, for British readers.

Did Hirohito really speak English? In one moment, Hirohito - in true Chauncey Gardiner fashion - goes into the garden for his first-ever photo-shoot. The photographers are squabbling amongst themselves over terms and conditions while, in the background, this peculiar, be-suited gentleman wanders around tending his roses. He proves to be quite a star, however, influences as he is by the American film stars he so idolises.

Another part of Sokurov's "totalitarian" sequence, this is devoted to Japanese WW II-time Emperor Hirohito and his farewell to the old good times of imperial Japan and painful entry into new after-war realities of defeated Japan rising to "democracy" and subject to America's "civilizing".

Compared to the dictators previously depicted by Sokurov (Hitler and Lenin), Hirohito appears the least dictatorial: he sometimes is felt like a "hostage" of the desire to defend the country's own pass of development against the "corroding" influx of Western "plebeian" culture, the desire which led Japan into the fascist "axis" and determined its defeat when the old traditions of relying on the soldiers' spirit and honour and not technical power, and despising non-Japanese as barbarians did not justify themselves.

The film is a hard viewing even for art-house fans because of obscure (probably psychologically justified) coloring and virtually no exterior action. All the action is psychological depicting the way the Emperor comes to reality and to realizing (and publicly declaring) that he is a man, not God, and taking the disgrace of defeat on himself to save his country.

Overall, 7/10.

I've never watched Russian Ark, Moloch or Taurus by Alexander Sokurov, but this was a real gem of a film and I will be keeping an eye out for other works by Sokurov. This is a film which captures the humanity of the Japanese Emperor Hirohito in the subsequent defeat of Nazi Germany. The role of Hirohito is played by Issei Ogata who makes a tremendous performance as the last Meiji Emperor, who comes across as a rather fallible and tolerant emperor. He struggles with the Japanese defeat and how to best deal with General MacArthur played by Robert Dawson.

Overall , I would give this film a 10/10 for the simple reason that the cinematic takes are absolutely breathtaking. The movie is engaging from the very beginning and Sokurov's portrayal of the ailing emperor inside an underground bunker requires tremendous talent and fantasy. Furthermore, I also liked the way Sokurov did not focus on the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; I feel this would undermined the whole purpose of the film, which is biographical. On the negative side, however, I was rather unimpressed by the role of MacArthur, I felt it was a weak role and did not live to the Great General. Also, the GI's were pretty awful.

But it remains impressive , I highly recommend it!

This is a very minimalistic effort. A movie where it seems nothing much happens and which moves along so slow, even snails would be annoyed. So if go into the movie expecting something fast, with fancy camera work (it's great camera work and the set/costume design is superb), where the camera brings in an action level, you'd be mistaken.

But what you do get, is a wonderfully crafted story, with exceptional acting. And while this is a Russian movie, it plays in Japan and has Japanese values written all over it. While it could be described as boring, I really liked every little bit of it. The stillness and ambiguity, the main character "fighting" to maintain a status. The cruel treatment he seems to be getting by some and of course the clash of the cultures. Subtle, sublime and very well done.

"The Sun" was a good way to introduce ourselves to the minimalist, detail-obsessed films of Alexander Sokurov -- so thanks to Minnesota Film Arts for showing it at St. Anthony Main, February 2010.

Sokurov's Emperor Hirohito is not only humanized in this film, he finds redemption, if in a limited way that leaves him assailable for his true weakness: weakness of will, anxiety of spirit, and dreamy preference for leisurely study and cool contemplation. Hirohito is a true nobleman where his job called for either a savior or a butcher.

The actor who plays Hirohito has an amazing technique. All of his facial features and especially his mouth and front teeth are applied very deliberately to create the sense of a careful, intelligent, and ultimately ordinary man.

What to say of Sokurov's unique vision? It's something like a documentary of daily habits, a virtuosic sequencing of mundane and ritual behavior -- eating breakfast, reading a book, chatting with his servants, waiting for General McArthur to return, greeting his wife -- sequences that contain turning points. A surprisingly naive, yet resigned man faces up to his life, thus learning to really live in the end.