A mythical creature attacks Japan.. The movie “Godzilla” turns into a state and people’s issue

Two strangers meet in a time of war and famine in Japan in 1945. Two strangers who have nothing in common try to build a healthy relationship in difficult circumstances that are getting worse because the ghosts of war have not disappeared. (Godzilla Minus One 2023 Directed by Takashi Yamazaki) Two strangers discover from their past that they have one great thing in common: “misery and alienation.” The previous war has marked their lives forever.

-Where is my mom?

The man receives the question as a slap in the face. The child has no answer. He who is not happy with what he has loses it. Hence the pangs of conscience.

The kamikaze pilot sits down by the sea to rest, and danger emerges from his sight. While the Japanese wait for American bombs to fall from the sky, Godzilla rises from the sea. This is how the event develops from the ground on which the character stands. The recipient feels the coherence of the narrative in time and space.

Modern narrative is characterized by a composition of many nuclei, Godzilla is a hybrid three-dimensional film genre, a film in which history, science and the fantastic are mixed.

Historically, the story is set from the beginning of the film in an era that requires the interpretation of the Godzilla myth in light of a historical-political reality. This is a film to teach Japan’s tragic history through the suspenseful superhero approach. Can Japan liberate itself from its samurai war values ​​while the China Sea is boiling in 2024?

Scientifically, the continued effects of radiation poisoning from the Hiroshima atomic bombing give the Godzilla story a relevance and vitality. (Godzilla is a Japanese dinosaur)?

Miraculously, the aftermath of the nuclear explosion emerged in the form of an artificial ghoul: the explosion awakened fish of various depths, a subject that entices viewers.

Godzilla is a fantastic film charged with imaginative energy generated from a historical context, an energy that embodies the nightmares of the past. The explosions caused a strange creature to form from chemical reactions… Godzilla emerges from the sea in respect for the laws of a universal imagination that considers “the sea to be the mother of all living beings,” according to Hermann Klatsch in his book “Evolution” (translated by Issam El-Din Hanafi Nasif, Al-Warraq Publishing, Baghdad 2015, p. 32).

A monster on a mission returns to the bottom of the sea, a monster that recovers from every violence like a ghoul that grows new heads every time one of its heads is cut off. Viewers see modern physics facing unknown forces… A disarmed Japan faces a ghoul… It has no alternatives. The debate over Japan’s participation in World War II becomes a self-criticism of the country… How does a country start life again after a devastating war?

How can we get rid of a mythical creature that attacks the heart of Tokyo, destroying the giant buildings that form the identity of the cities, and tourists rush to take pictures next to them? This is an imminent danger that modern technology cannot stop.

The film includes half an hour of documentation of the remnants of war and an hour and a half of fiction that reveals to us the manifestations of fear of war and the resistance reaction.

Godzilla in Japan seems to be a state and people issue. The first film came out seventy years ago during the Cold War. It dealt with the challenges of how Japan, a defeated and disarmed country, would face Godzilla? Any use of weapons would be interpreted by the Soviet Union as a declaration of war…

The idea is good and the visual dimension is strong; however, the execution is rushed compared to, for example, Steven Spielberg’s 2005 film “War of the Worlds.” True, Japan has a long history of manga and samurai fighting; however, the production budget has an impact on the quality of the films.

The budget of Godzilla seems weak and most of the actors are of modest talent… This technical assessment does not hide the following fact:

This is a film that is technically weak compared to American superhero films; but this is “a work of art that bears witness to its time,” in the words of George Lukacs. Gonzala is a long-lived superhero who does not age.

Guide:

This is a commercial film with a steady stream of customers waiting for it like a series. A Godzilla film has been released roughly every two years since 1954, because the production company is confident in the profit, not the artistic genius of the directors. The first film has become a model to be imitated.

In 2024, two Godzilla films will be released worldwide, this one in this article and Godzilla x Kong: Le Nouvel Empire directed by Adam Wingard about Godzilla’s fight with King Kong. It seems that producers have struck gold and will produce new Godzilla films.

Profit is guaranteed.

This gold vein has a historical root. For samurai society, heroism is war. Honor is to die in war. This is the Japanese war paradigm. Anyone who returns from war alive is a coward, and his honor is questioned. Because of a questionable heroic retreat and landing, the kamikaze pilot was disgraced.

The new film changes this deadly paradigm.

Godzilla moves, fish rise from the bottom to the surface of the sea… Japan’s past floats on the shore of Tokyo… The pilot heads there, confident of victory and survival.

The Japanese war paradigm has been changed.

A lone being occupies the screen. Man and beast face to face. The visual appeal of the confrontation between the infinitely small and the infinitely large fascinates us… Godzilla at sea is a distinct, defined form, far removed from the crowd, surrounded by an infinite void.

Who will win?

The logic of war, according to General Carl von Clausewitz, says: “Throw your opponent to the ground before you talk to him.” (On War, Carl von Clausewitz, translated by Salim Shaker Al-Imami, Arab Foundation for Studies and Publishing, 1st ed., 1997, p. 103). Of course, when you throw your opponent to the ground, the conversation is over, there is no need for negotiations.

It has moved from “fight to die and gain honor” to “fight to win and stay alive.”

Life first.

This is a mental revolution in the logic of the samurai people.