'Godzilla Minus One': Trauma, terror and unexpected hope
The cast and crew made a mutual aid monster movie.
(Photo courtesy Toho Co. Ltd.)
69 years ago the world was introduced to Godzilla. The titular 1954 film was a shocking reinvention of the giant monster movie, a nuclear allegory blunt in message but beautifully told in story. Ishiro Honda and his team not only invented an iconic creature but took the time to show just how devastating its rampage could be. Not even a decade removed from the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Godzilla was a horror film first and foremost, with the monster both the attacker and the victim.
In the decades since he’s been reimagined. He’s never fully lost his connection to the atomic bomb, but that’s faded as other stories or messages took precedence. He’s fought pollution in Japan, stand-ins for rival nations, King Kong several times and in the recent American Monsterverse been reimagined as an ancient force and natural protector of Earth, taking on parasites and climate change. 2016’s Shin Godzilla used its continuity reboot to look at Japan’s bureaucracy and its reliance on outside help. Now the King of Monsters is back in Godzilla Minus One, another reboot that owes a lot to the 1954 original.
It’s also a stunning work of cinema and one of the best films of 2023. Writer, director and visual effects supervisor Takashi Yamazaki has crafted a movie filled with emotion, tension and dread, but also hope. It’s the rare giant monster film where the human story is as thrilling as the monster scenes, and effortlessly weaved together. It’s the original idea of Godzilla encapsulated into an anti-nihilistic, pro-community film about trauma and overcoming it.
Spoilers ahead, consider yourself warned.
From the start the film is dark. In the last days of World War II, kamikaze pilot Koichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) winds up on Odo Island after being too scared to die in a losing war. As he fights his guilt, a young Godzilla appears, killing nearly everyone on the island. Even more traumatized, he ends up back in Tokyo after Japan’s surrender, his neighborhood bombed to ruins, his neighbors (including Shoplifters’ Sakura Ando in an excellent turn) ashamed of him. An orphaned baby and an unhoused young woman (Minami Hamabe) end up at his doorstep, paving the start of Koichi and his community’s efforts for literally and emotionally rebuilding. But soon the American military is testing nuclear weapons in the Pacific and Godzilla is affected. The dinosaur-like being is transformed into a hulking, scarred, upright monster with a grudge against the humans who did this to it…
It’s a daunting task and the human actors deliver. As Koichi, Kamiki is an earnest bundle of nerves, trying his best even as PTSD leaves him a hunched over, twitchy mess. These are not action heroes or perfect leaders, but real people trying to forge a new path for themselves. Unlike many monster films, these human scenes don’t feel perfunctory or a distraction from the monster mayhem. In fact, the first act, with Koichi and his friends trying to start anew, was so compelling you could almost forgive it if Godzilla stayed away a bit longer and left the film’s focus on their efforts.
But when Godzilla does appear, Minus One pulls no punches. There’s a visceral quality to each attack, specifically with how they are framed. Gareth Edwards’ 2014 film (a movie I adore) focused on scale, giving a sense to just how overwhelming a giant monster’s attack would look like. Every shot was a stunning painting, with wide angles capturing the scope of it all. Here, Yamazaki puts the camera at ground level, at human level. Audiences are fleeing Godzilla’s giant feet with the rest of Tokyo, or dodging rubble kicked up by his mayhem. This is not a lumbering beast, but a reactive animal, his attacks quick and frightening. Rather than simply standing against a skyline, Godzilla here is up close and personal, his proximity an intentionally terrifying element by Yamazaki. And because Minus One has done so well investing audiences in the cast, there is a real dread creeping through each of these scenes and a sense that no one is safe.
And yet, Godzilla Minus One surprised audiences, myself included. Despite the darkest and bleakest outlook for Japan against Godzilla in decades, this is the most anti-nihilistic film in the series. These are all characters traumatized by the war, from service to loss. They start in the ruins, lashing out and hurting. Again, Koichi is a failed kamikaze pilot. But over the course of Minus One, at their lowest moments, they find a reason to keep going and joy in life. By the time the film’s benevolent mad scientist (Hidetaka Yoshioka, superb) is decrying how Japan threw away lives in World War II and how the citizens of Tokyo should fight to live, not die for a cause, you’re riding that sense of hope and purpose.
The refusal to despair ties into the film’s political current. Throughout the film, authority figures are absent rulers.The American presence, despite the recent victory over Japan and occupation, is off screen. When Godzilla attacks, the U.S. is more concerned with avoiding escalating Cold War tensions with the Soviets. Japan’s government, such as it is, is more focused on suppressing the news than any meaningful response (to the continued ire of those who remember similar actions during the war). And with Japan’s military gone, and almost every character upset over being used as fodder. Everyone on screen is sick of war, and not looking to fight another senseless battle.
But this isn’t some libertarian or anarchic film. Left to fend for themselves, the residents of Tokyo band together, taking community-led action. There’s a disaster committee, people teaming up to help injured folks and track down missing people. By the climax there is an anti-Godzilla task force united in members’ belief that someone needs to do something, and they aren’t going to shy away. It’s a message for mutual aid told through the kaiju genre. It’s perhaps the best call for stepping up to help your neighbors in cinema in some time.
Godzilla Minus One, like the original, is rooted in the damage left by the atomic bombings of Japan. But every Godzilla film after it has reflected the times and issues in which they were made. Both the 2014 Edwards film and Shin Godzilla drew on the Fukushima nuclear disaster. And although Yamazaki hasn’t outright said it, it’s not hard to see some parallels between Godzilla Minus One and the real-world response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Governments and people in power abandoning the masses to a deadly threat out of political concerns and not reading the urgency of the issue, leaving them with only half measures and conflicting messages, and the only real help or assistance coming from communal action. That rings as true in this film as it did through the last four years.
It is, with private citizens banding together under a former military leader and scientist, fighting the good fight with hope, what I wish Pacific Rim had hewed closer to. This movie is light on super science and has plenty of bleak moments, it’s not giant robots and bright colors, but there is a shared throughline with Guillermo del Toro’s monster film. This just does a lot of the themes better.
Godzilla Minus One is a heavy movie, make no mistake. But it’s not without thrills. Fighter jets whizz by, dodging destruction nimbly. Chase scenes (including a Jaws-like showdown on the high seas) feature nail-biting tension and excitement. There are plenty of nods to the 1954 film and classic elements from Godzilla’s mythos are given exciting new visions (just wait until you see the atomic breath…). Every triumph, however small in the face of Godzilla’s path of destruction, is worthy of a cheer. It would be wrong to call the movie “fun,” but never once does it become boring or weighed down by its seriousness.
Godzilla Minus One’s biggest strength is its understanding of trauma and healing. The cast’s struggles are real and brought to life, giving the movie an intimacy and weight that helps earn its larger moments. Yamazaki knows Godzilla and the original movie well, and what worked in it, but he uses the themes of trauma and bitterness to make a rich reinvention here. See it in theaters.
5 out of 5. Hail to the king.