Il sole

Very powerful film-making, which leaves you feeling very unsettled. Through the minutae of his days and his every gesture, nervous tick and grimaces, it describes the last days of the living God, the Emperor of Japan. It's already perfectly clear to everyone that Japan is on its knees and the war has been won by mere mortals. It's perfectly clear, and yet the nation apparently still needs to know that its Emperor is a God. Superficially, the movie could be compared to Der Untergang, The Downfall, in that it shows a previous icon of absolute power cooped up in his bunker, days before his complete demise. The mood of these two movies is so very different, though - there was life stirring in among the ashes of Oliver Hirschbiegel's Berlin, still. There is seemingly no life left at all in the devastation surrounding the Japanese Emperor's palace and bunker. You see so little of the physical destruction, possibly because the movie had a small-ish budget and they couldn't afford complete reconstructions, but you feel it everywhere. Never before have sea creatures preserved in formaldehyde been more eerie. I was blown away by the sequences of the catfish (a recurrent subject of traditional Japanese ink drawings) swimming in the sky like bomber planes over a nuclear-war devastated nightmarish landscape. All the way through, I loved the use of classical music, seemingly distant and distorted - Bach and Wagner, and others. Every little gesture and detail in the movie matters, every camera angle and perspective is carefully planned. Some might call it slow, but to be honest I was never bored. Thankfully, the movie is also completely non-judgmental of anyone. Despite the odd wooden performance, I recommend this to anyone who is used to quality world cinema.

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.

"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.

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.

Director Sokourov's portrayal of the Japanese Emperor during the time of his capitulation to America is spellbinding and possibly unique. Japanese civilization and especially its culture from warriors to sex and love are totally different to western culture. Issei HiroHito who plays the role of the Emperor is majestic in human manner and mannerisms, spanning glimpses of ancient customs of etiquette, the significance of poetry and the new world of science (HiroHito's passion being marine biology). Most significant is his surprising awareness of the fateful decisions he has to take at the end of WW2 in order to bring Japan into the next era. Long lasting peace is his fervent vision. One is surprised to learn that he hardly participatedin the making of the military decisions: unaware of the attack on Pearl Harbour, for example. Luckily for Japan, MacArthur knew something about Japan and its rigid etiquette and sensitive non military culture, having been there before the war. Lukily for Japan, MacArthur decided on getting to know his opponent in person to person meetings with the Emperor before pronouncing judgment on whether the Emperor was guilty of being leader of the war or just an innocent person kept away from the important decisions. The two meetings between MacArthur and HiroHito when HirorHito spoke English (he said he also spoke other languages), were non-political and dealt mostly with personal matters of family and leisure interests. These discussions, subtly developed in the film, convinced MacArthur that HiroHito was innocent and that HiroHito could be a unifying force for a new Japan. (This positive attitude by America through MacArthur can be contrasted by the exact opposite of the Versaille Peace Treaty at the end of WW1 vindictively pushed through by the French and which proved to be, as Woodrow Wilson feared, a cause for further troubles in Europe, finally WW2.) What makes the film outstanding is Issei Ogata's sensitive and convincing portrayal of the Emperor concerned with human interests, who is considered by the Japanese as a God. Secondly, the decorum of the Japanese, so rigid to exclude all compromise. Luckily for the Japanese HiroHito found a way to compromise. Also the film's special color range suggested more undertones than either a documentary or a book. Essential to see to understand.