Godzilla Minus One: traumas always come back

The King of Monsters turned seventy in 2024, and the best celebration is Godzilla Minus One. A film set during World War II that revisits the original concept of the popular franchise and casts the giant lizard in a metaphorical role, representing the horror of nuclear massacres and the trauma they left on the Japanese people.

Shin Godzilla, the predecessor

Over the years, Godzilla would become Japan's hero against external threats (usually aliens or other monsters), but it wasn't until Shin Godzilla that the monster was reclaimed as a narrative device, in a dramatic film about what the government and science do when a giant reptile with powers appears.

What should the state do in the face of such a threat turns out to be a key question in this 2016 film directed by Hideaki Anno (creator of Evangelion) and Shinji Higuchi (FX director of the '90s Gamera trilogy). Shin Godzilla dealt with the actions, consequences, and compromises that Japanese politicians and scientists had to make, and the tension with international politics.

Godzilla's first appearance

In Godzilla Minus One (2023, Takashi Yamazaki) we find a broken protagonist, a kamikaze pilot who didn't have the courage to crash. On his way back to Japan he stops at a small island, where a military outpost operates. There Tachibana, the chief mechanic, realizes that Shikishima, the protagonist, didn't complete his mission and faked that his plane was damaged.

It's on that island, during the night, where we see Godzilla's first appearance; a smaller one, unmutated, that attacks the outpost and kills everyone. Except Shikishima, who has the chance to be a hero but once again freezes out of fear, and Tachibana, who on top of it blames him for the death of their comrades.

With the wound growing ever deeper, the pilot returns home and finds a city destroyed by American bombings, his parents dead, and the hostility of his neighbors, who see him as a deserter. He does everything he can to move forward, gets a job clearing sea mines, and manages to form a "family" with Noriko and her baby Akiko.

While the protagonist is out at sea for his new job, Godzilla returns on nuclear super steroids: now he truly is the King of Monsters and a problem for the entire country. From there, the narrative shifts to a political drama without losing sight of Shikishima, who never stops having a hard time but never stops fighting either.

Seven years after Shin Godzilla, this new film reclaims the monster as a narrative engine to delve into how traumas resurface no matter how hard we try to bury them. Worlds apart from the schlock of the American Godzilla, Godzilla Minus One was very well received by critics and awards bodies (Oscar for Best Visual Effects, Best Picture from the Japanese Academy). Distribution of Japanese cinema tends to be complicated, and it took nearly a year to premiere outside the country. Unfortunately we missed it in theaters, but it's available online.