Godzilla Minus One [Media Notes 127 B] [has a heart ❤️]

I need to say a bit more about Godzilla Minus One than I did in my earlier post, which is mostly about the film’s look and feel, its overall vibe.

One of the ideas in many of the reviews, including reviews on YouTube, is that unlike most Godzilla movies, this one is about the characters, rather than treating them as props and frames for rampaging kaiju. Godzilla Minus One centers on four characters: Kōichi Shikishima, a former kamakazi pilot, Noriko Ōishi, a girl he befriends who becomes his girlfriend during the course of the film, Kenji Noda, an engineer, and Sōsaku Tachibana, an airplane mechanic. As the film opens Shikishima has landed his plane on Odo Island, ostensibly for repairs. There’s nothing wrong. Later that day the island is attacked by Godzilla. Tachibana urges Shikishima to open fire from his plane. He chokes. Everyone on the island is killed except Tachibana and Shikishima.

Shikishima is overcome with shame for his actions. The film is about how he redeems himself. In the wreckage of post-war Tokyo he meets a young girl Noriko, who has been entrusted with an infant girl by a dying friend. He takes her in and the three come to function as a family. At the same time he takes a job on a mine sweeper, where he meets Noda. When Godzilla shows up in Tokyo harbor, the minesweeper is dispatched to deal with it, unsuccessfully.

Noda becomes involved in a civilian effort to destroy Godzilla. That the effort is civilian, and voluntary, is emphasized. Noda, in turn, recruits Shikishima to the project and he, in time, recruits Tachibana, who is angry with Shikishima because he failed to pull the trigger on Godzilla back on Odo Island. The mission is successful – it has to be, no? otherwise there’d be no film, but not before Godzilla levels a large swath of Tokyo.

From the original 1954 Gojira

Godzilla Minus One owes an obvious debt to the original Gojira (1954) in the way it depicts Godzilla’s destruction of Tokyo. There are a number of shots that are obvious references to the original, e.g. Godzilla with a train in its mouth, or TV reporters transmitting Godzilla’s actions from the top of a building as Godzilla approaches. Akira Ifukube’s Godzilla theme from the original Godzilla theme was used during the sequence in which Godzilla was finally destroyed, which, though quite different in substance from the original, had a similar ceremonial quality. At the end, the sailors involved in the action saluted the now-vanquished Godzilla. At this point the soundtrack has choral music, with a solo female voice, that is reminiscent of a segment in the original soundtrack.

At the end, though, there is an underwater shot that suggests that Godzilla may not have been killed.