With the snore-fest reboot coming out on Blu-Ray in a few days (the review for which you can read here), I thought it would be worthwhile to take a look back at the film that
started it all: 1954’s Gojira. I’d never seen it before, and what I was
expecting to find was the film that spawned the kaiju formula, where an unknown
force emerges, it turns out to be a giant monster, a second act scene of city
destruction occurs, and a final resolving climax of massive destructive power
removes the monster threat. While that
statement can describe the broad strokes of Gojira,
it doesn’t really do the film justice for how it stands alone as not just a
great Godzilla movie, not just a great monster or horror movie, but as one of
the definitive classics of Japanese cinema.
See, what Gojira’s
greatness comes down to is how it not only functions as a story of human
struggle against a destructive force of nature, but it is also a powerful
allegory for the dangers of nuclear proliferation and the pain and loss that
was felt by the Japanese people at the hands of the nuclear holocausts in
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. When destructive
forces first start hitting coastal Japanese villages, nobody knows what’s
happening, and the cause of the destruction is never shown on-screen. Then, when the force is discovered to be a
giant radiation-absorbing reptile, it quickly becomes apparent that the
Japanese military is nowhere near equipped to handle a crisis of this
magnitude. The first half of the film
mostly consists of the human characters trying their damnedest to figure out
just how to counteract this threat, and it’s hard not to feel their urgency,
especially as we watch their country get torn apart by an unstoppable force.
The allegory is further nailed home by the climactic subplot
involving the use of a new superweapon and a scientist’s internal struggle over
whether unleashing his doomsday device upon the world would create a greater
evil than the one they’re seeking to eliminate.
It’s a surprisingly powerful message for a film about a giant lizard,
but the film pulls it off with grace.
The final scenes are actually quite emotionally charged, staying away
from the action-packed climax one might expect from a monster flick and instead
choosing to meditate on the gravity of the events taking place and the
ramifications they have on the greater world.
Of course, I would be remiss to not mention the key
destructive scene of the film where Godzilla destroys Tokyo. Say what you will about the limitations of
the special effects of the 1950s, this film pushes the edges of those
limitations. The miniature city that was
built for Godzilla to stomp around it looks damn near perfect, and Godzilla
feels just as enormous as his imposing presence is supposed to imply. Sure, if you’re looking closely, you can see
that the rubber Godzilla costume doesn’t actually provide for all that much
mobility, but the film’s clever editing disguises that fairly well, and the
look of the monster is the classic design that would spawn so many
sequels in the coming decades.
Now, I won’t say that Gojira
is a flawless film. A couple of its
human-centric subplots never really go anywhere, such as the story of a
scientist who doesn’t want to kill Godzilla out of humanitarian concerns, or a
romantic subplot that is dropped almost as soon as it’s brought up. That minor complaint aside, though, Gojira isn’t really a film about any
particular character’s story arc. This
is a film about the role of humanity in a post-nuclear age and a metaphorical
demonstration of the consequences our irresponsibility in that age can
cause. This message may have been
overshadowed by the pure spectacle that would come to dominate the kaiju genre
in the coming decades, but it’s just as powerful today as it was fifty years
ago. If you’re looking for a treat from
another era, get a copy of the original Gojira.
What do you prefer: the intellectualism of the original, or
the full-blown fantasy of the action-packed Showa and Heisei eras? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
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