The Sun (Russia, 2005, Aleksandr Sokurov, 115mins)
Director Aleksandr Sokurov is Russian, and although this is a film set almost claustrophobically in Japan, The Sun is a largely European co production. Yet this is understandable: the subject matter is likely to be controversial even now, since it involves not only the depiction of Emperor Hirohito (who, it is made clear, is considered a divine descendant of the Sun) but also his involvement with the Allies during the dying days of World War II.
There is a definite Sokurov effect that can be traced throughout all his films, including this one. Partly its the effect of his long-take style and the slow camera movements, partly the stylised (almost somnambulant) acting and the unhurried pace of the narrative. It provokes a disconnection which is particularly well-suited to this setting, like trying to perceive history through many layers of distortion and ideology. As a viewer, it can certainly be off-putting: I thought that his Mother and Son (1997) was one the longest films I'd ever seen, despite it's running time being little over 70 minutes. I wasn't very much more enamored of Russian Ark (2003), however grand the settings and however brave the one-shot ethic.
Yet, setting The Sun apart is the inherent strangeness of the setting (to me as a Westerner, no less than to Sokurov – and it is a film, after all, which has been filtered through his perceptions). Further, there is the strangeness of the protagonist, Emperor Hirohito, who takes his place in Sokurov’s recent series of world leaders during wartime: there has been Hitler (in Moloch, a film which was shot as if it were history viewed on CCTV camera) and Lenin (in Taurus). Here, the lead actor, Issey Ogata, is effective in conveying the very isolation of a man who is treated as a God – who indeed, is a God to his people. Everything is done for him, all around him bow with respect and are quiet. In putting this on film, it could easily become oppressive (especially when combined with the severely restricted colour palette, on which more later), but the key tactic is not to be too dour – something which was almost too strong in the two earlier filmic portraits.
There is, for example, a wonderful scene where Hirohito and his attendants inspect a package which has just arrived from the Americans containing Hershey bars. The wonderment of the servants and their trained reticence in opening or even identifying the gift as chocolate is swiftly replaced by the excitement of Hirohito as he hands the bars out to them. When the scene is abruptly curtailed by the arrival of a visitor, one of the quieter servants is beside himself that he has missed out on a bar, but his mute yelps of protest are shuffled off to the edge of the frame. As in many of the film’s scenes, a lifetime of social conditioning and behaviour is enacted, but with a graceful levity of spirit.
Equally, there is the apprehension and surprise of Hirohito when he is at the headquarters of General MacArthur and is excused from the room, abruptly required to open the door without the aid of a servant. It's the kind of thing that is more humorous when you have over time learned the dour nature of the servants, and witnessed the faces of the government ministers, each one of them set in a rictus of fear and terror as they deliver their reports on the country’s progress. There is very definitely a pain that runs throughout the Japanese performances in the film, but yet this tragedy is never more than glimpsed (as in the ruins that Hirohito sees from his cavalcade as he processes to the American HQ).
This is because the focus is on Hirohito himself, and the Emperor is unaccustomed to speaking about himself in the first person, let alone truly in touch with the outside world of his Japan. The mist that seems to cloud the visual frame of the movie scarcely lifts when finally the Emperor leaves his residence and stands outside. Until he renounces his divine status at the close of film and finally broadcasts (off-screen) the surrender of Japan, there is little direct light cast except for a dull pallor permanently filtered through the smoking ruins of war. Its an effective strategy for a film which consciously makes play in its title with the Emperor’s light-giving descent.
Similarly, for most of the film, everything he comes in contact with is dead or close to it: his servants are elderly, the furnishings of his home, his formal suits sourced from another era, there are the corpses of marine animals he carefully dissects, and stultifying levels of formality in both language and body movements. When the Americans and MacArthur enter the narrative, they start to strip Hirohito of these morbid attachments: his first contact with the Americans is watching some young GIs chasing a bird on his lawn, his candid conversations with MacArthur lead him to discuss his family and his fears, and when one time he tries to discuss the beauty he feels at beholding the form of a dissected catfish, MacArthur gets up and abruptly dismisses himself. Finally, he is involved in a photo-shoot outside the Palace, hamming it up like Charlie Chaplin. At this point, his wife enters the story for the first time, and they fumble naively on the sofa trying to remove her hat (presumably it always would have been done by a servant). It's a change in demeanor that seems to be explicitly linked to his decision to surrender to the occupying forces, and a change that is brought into focus only more acutely by the admission that the young man who taped his surrender speech has committed hara-kiri.
This final reminder of ritual death is scarcely now able to derail the risen sun that suffuses the closing image. For Sokurov’s film has moved, slowly but inexorably, from the morbidity of a lost War into a new light of peace, and it is for this that Hirohito has given up his divine descent. The Sun is finally free to shine.
Review by Ewan Munro
There is a definite Sokurov effect that can be traced throughout all his films, including this one. Partly its the effect of his long-take style and the slow camera movements, partly the stylised (almost somnambulant) acting and the unhurried pace of the narrative. It provokes a disconnection which is particularly well-suited to this setting, like trying to perceive history through many layers of distortion and ideology. As a viewer, it can certainly be off-putting: I thought that his Mother and Son (1997) was one the longest films I'd ever seen, despite it's running time being little over 70 minutes. I wasn't very much more enamored of Russian Ark (2003), however grand the settings and however brave the one-shot ethic.
Yet, setting The Sun apart is the inherent strangeness of the setting (to me as a Westerner, no less than to Sokurov – and it is a film, after all, which has been filtered through his perceptions). Further, there is the strangeness of the protagonist, Emperor Hirohito, who takes his place in Sokurov’s recent series of world leaders during wartime: there has been Hitler (in Moloch, a film which was shot as if it were history viewed on CCTV camera) and Lenin (in Taurus). Here, the lead actor, Issey Ogata, is effective in conveying the very isolation of a man who is treated as a God – who indeed, is a God to his people. Everything is done for him, all around him bow with respect and are quiet. In putting this on film, it could easily become oppressive (especially when combined with the severely restricted colour palette, on which more later), but the key tactic is not to be too dour – something which was almost too strong in the two earlier filmic portraits.
There is, for example, a wonderful scene where Hirohito and his attendants inspect a package which has just arrived from the Americans containing Hershey bars. The wonderment of the servants and their trained reticence in opening or even identifying the gift as chocolate is swiftly replaced by the excitement of Hirohito as he hands the bars out to them. When the scene is abruptly curtailed by the arrival of a visitor, one of the quieter servants is beside himself that he has missed out on a bar, but his mute yelps of protest are shuffled off to the edge of the frame. As in many of the film’s scenes, a lifetime of social conditioning and behaviour is enacted, but with a graceful levity of spirit.
Equally, there is the apprehension and surprise of Hirohito when he is at the headquarters of General MacArthur and is excused from the room, abruptly required to open the door without the aid of a servant. It's the kind of thing that is more humorous when you have over time learned the dour nature of the servants, and witnessed the faces of the government ministers, each one of them set in a rictus of fear and terror as they deliver their reports on the country’s progress. There is very definitely a pain that runs throughout the Japanese performances in the film, but yet this tragedy is never more than glimpsed (as in the ruins that Hirohito sees from his cavalcade as he processes to the American HQ).
This is because the focus is on Hirohito himself, and the Emperor is unaccustomed to speaking about himself in the first person, let alone truly in touch with the outside world of his Japan. The mist that seems to cloud the visual frame of the movie scarcely lifts when finally the Emperor leaves his residence and stands outside. Until he renounces his divine status at the close of film and finally broadcasts (off-screen) the surrender of Japan, there is little direct light cast except for a dull pallor permanently filtered through the smoking ruins of war. Its an effective strategy for a film which consciously makes play in its title with the Emperor’s light-giving descent.
Similarly, for most of the film, everything he comes in contact with is dead or close to it: his servants are elderly, the furnishings of his home, his formal suits sourced from another era, there are the corpses of marine animals he carefully dissects, and stultifying levels of formality in both language and body movements. When the Americans and MacArthur enter the narrative, they start to strip Hirohito of these morbid attachments: his first contact with the Americans is watching some young GIs chasing a bird on his lawn, his candid conversations with MacArthur lead him to discuss his family and his fears, and when one time he tries to discuss the beauty he feels at beholding the form of a dissected catfish, MacArthur gets up and abruptly dismisses himself. Finally, he is involved in a photo-shoot outside the Palace, hamming it up like Charlie Chaplin. At this point, his wife enters the story for the first time, and they fumble naively on the sofa trying to remove her hat (presumably it always would have been done by a servant). It's a change in demeanor that seems to be explicitly linked to his decision to surrender to the occupying forces, and a change that is brought into focus only more acutely by the admission that the young man who taped his surrender speech has committed hara-kiri.
This final reminder of ritual death is scarcely now able to derail the risen sun that suffuses the closing image. For Sokurov’s film has moved, slowly but inexorably, from the morbidity of a lost War into a new light of peace, and it is for this that Hirohito has given up his divine descent. The Sun is finally free to shine.
Review by Ewan Munro
posted by Barnaby at 4:39 PM
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