The Sun

Alexander Jacoby a_p_jacoby at yahoo.co.uk
Wed Oct 5 11:12:02 EDT 2005


Sharp-san,
 
Your mixed feelings are seconded. The film had a brief release in London and I found it intriguing but rather dull. The claustrophobia of the piece is extreme and I found it rather hard to sit through. Also, I agree with your complaints about the performance of Issey Ogata (shouldn't we transliterate it thus? All the reviews give Issey, but using "y" to indicate a long vowel in transliteration would make Dr Hepburn turn in his grave! Will we then have to start writing about geysha?). Sorry, I'm getting distracted - his fish mouth gestures are very irritating, especially as they seem to be the only expression he has. But I don't think the encounter with MacArthur was the high point - the actor playing the General was wooden too. It's obvious that Sokhurov's first language is neither English nor Japanese!
 
It actually struck me that the film is rather generous to the Emperor - it basically absolves him of any personal responsibility for Japanese militarism, and I think it's fair to say that, at the very least, he was the only man who could have stopped it, had he felt so inclined. My favourite scenes were those of him fiddling while Tokyo burns - eg, his concentration on marine biology, and his writing poems for his son.
 
The film is interesting precisely because it chooses to restrict itself to such a limited perspective, concentrating solely on the Emperor's thoughts, feelings and actions, with only a distanced, diffuse sense of what is going on around him. Sokurov's Mother and Son had the same fascination. I can't say it made me feel it was a wonderful movie, though. Like you, I came out wondering whether it was any good or not. Surely this is a bad sign. I've never come out of Sansho Dayu or Tokyo Story wondering whether they were any good or not!
 
Regards,

ALEX


		
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