THE SUN (SOLNTSE) (11/09)

In Alexander Sokurov’a film “The Sun,” Japan’s wartime emperor, Hirohito (a strongly moving, thoughtful performance by Issey Ogata, complemented perfectly by Shiro Sano as his aide) is hidden away in a bunker beneath a decaying summer palace.  With 19^th century soft-focus flattened style photography, the director pulls the viewer into the everyday – yet monumentally history-making– life of the emperor in his underground hideaway as slowly and surely as a fish on a line and under the same microscopic gaze that the emperor, an avid biologist, uses on his soft-shell crab with a magnifying glass.

The Sun” is the third in a series on world leaders by the Russian Director, whose credits include Hitler (Moloch) and Lenin (Taurus), as well as (Russian Ark).  The screenplay is taken from Yury Arabov’s brilliantly distilled and elliptical screenplay. 

 

Perhaps because of this, the deeply etched, humane  portrait echoes deeply of film portrayals of such tragic and moving royal figures as “Nicholas and Alexandria” and “The Last Emperor,” rather than what is more usually thought of as political war figures.  It is a story of nobility and upbringing that ultimately becomes useless and shelllike yet retains an innate dignity that cannot be destroyed.  It also makes cinematic history by being the first time that Emperor Hirohito has been depicted intimately in film.

 

 “The Sun” takes place in occupied Japan from late August 1945 until January 1, 1946. On the 15th of August, Emperor Hirohito made a public appeal to his people to cease military operations. Millions of Japanese were shocked to hear their Emperor’s voice for the first time in their lives.

 

The film shows the historic events leading up to two crucial decisions. The first was Hirohito’s formal declaration of surrender from World War II, and the second was the renunciation of his divine status. During this period personal conversations with U.S General Douglas MacArther,  the Emperor also forms an unlikely bond with the general, who attempted to spare as many lives as possible.

 

Director Alexander Sokurov describes what makes  Moloch and Taurus a trilogy.  In his own words:   (Unlike Hitler or Lenin) It appears that there are different ways out of tragic situations. The Japanese Emperor Hirohito is a symbol of a constructive finale, or to say it correctly, not a finale but a continuation – life. It is possible to see ruins in a destroyed city, but one can also see dozens of spared buildings – to put it in perspective. For that to happen there is a need for a special kind of human nature.

"As a small, puny, thin-voiced scientist involved in hydrobiology, Hirohito wasn’t perfectly suitable for tyranny. His palace was burned down during a bombing by the Americans and the Emperor lived either in his bunker underground or in the only spared stone building in the palace territory – the laboratory. He didn’t look like a bloodthirsty god of war at all. Rather, Hirohito chose to save human lives instead of embracing the idea of national pride. In fact, this is the great legacy of Hirohito – and of those American politicians who could understand and appreciate his position. In 1945, Hirohito and McArthur found a way out of the situation that seemed to be insoluble. This is a lesson – good can be strong and clever.

"It is difficult to define and understand power in Japan, and the country is known for its quiet, indistinct, deep, and repressed power. The Japanese are not Asian people; they are closer to the Englishman, with their island self-consciousness. And they have the same mission, but the peaks and troughs of development are different. On the face of it, there is little difference between the worship for the Emperor of Japan or, for example, that of General Stalin. Exaltation of the institution of power entered deeply the consciousness of human society long ago, and it is difficult to imagine what needs to be done today to convince people that power is not given by God. The Japanese represent a different human world, and are different from both European and Asian worlds. This total separation gives birth to unique examples of delicacy and grace as well as hardheartedness.

"Hirohito added one more color to the picture of the world that we are trying to portray and create. This is a new side of a human character that is impossible to fully comprehend. The character is the element. The character is an inexhaustible artistic object. I don’t make films about dictators. I make films about those who are more outstanding than the rest. They appeared to be in possession of ultimate power, but human characteristics such as weakness and passion effect their deeds more than the status and circumstances. Human qualities are higher than any historical situation: higher and stronger."
In his “Memoirs”, Douglas McArthur wrote: “The Emperor took the responsibility for all the actions of the Japanese government and armed forces, clearly understanding that it threatens him with unavoidable court and death.” “I was amazed,“ McArthur continues. “He was an Emperor by birth, but at that moment, I realized that I met the first Japanese gentleman.”