31 MORE Days, 31 MORE Screams: Day 11 (Godzilla)

[roaring intensifies]

Well, that turned out to have some interesting thematic resonance. Yes, we're looking at the granddad of daikaiju today, the original, the king of the monsters. It's Godzilla. Or Gojira, I suppose, in its creators' native tongue. There are like... I dunno, 40 of these movies? It's a pop culture phenomenon and you just get this vision in your head right away when you hear the name. A really big lizard stomping around Tokyo and fucking everything up, sometimes with other giant monsters and robots around also fucking shit up or fighting each other. Yeah, that's the shit! It sounds awesome! Well, that's not how it started. Nightmare On Elm Street began not with a one-liner jokester killing people with ironic themed murders, but a serious-minded menace transcending the boundary of dream and reality and just straight up killing. Friday the 13th began not with a hockey mask zombie stabbing and slicing as some immovable force, but a desperate woman stabbing and slicing to avenge her son and get back at those goddamn fucking teenagers. In this vein, Godzilla began not with a glorious spectacle of smashing buildings and fighting space dragons, but with a film that intertwined one giant monster's random attacks with a very human cost and a very human drama. This, then, is the true beginning of Godzilla.

Immediately the film begins in dire straits, with boats getting sunk left and right by some mysterious force. Already the human cost is high, but it's peanuts compared to what's coming. On Odo Island, fishing boats are being attacked and the fish aren't biting. It's a curse, the curse of Gojira. The ancient beast cannot be appeased by shrine rituals, and attacks. 20 minutes in, we see Godzilla for the first time. That's pretty fast! I know it's only a 95-minute movie, but I'm so used to this spooky stuff building tension and revealing stuff at the third or half mark. Not here! 20% of the way in and here he is! What came next was interesting, during the discussion of Godzilla. I guess I always assumed, probably from watching the 1998 American Godzilla as a young one, that Godzilla was the mutated result of atom bomb testing. That reading still sort of works, but there's also the fact that Godzilla has lived in the deep for ages before being woken up by all the atom bomb testing. In this light, Godzilla is more of a Lovecraftian beast arising from the dark depths to eradicate us all with his infinite power. Speaking of... here it is again! It's the halfway mark by now so I was expecting a cavalcade of destruction. We do not get that. A train gets fucked up by it appearing, but otherwise Godzilla just sort of fucks off. It doesn't take long for it to come back, and NOW we are in full kaiju everything gets fucked up mode. It's a spectacle for sure, but Godzilla is not about spectacle. Oh, no. This is pure tragedy, and even this doesn't last for too long. After this are scenes of people trying to heal, crying children in hospitals, a city devastated by an infinite thing with unstoppable destructive potential.


Now for the strangest comparison I'll ever make. Godzilla is a more competent version of The Tommyknockers, done like 35 years early. Well, half of The Tommyknockers as there's no metaphors for hardcore drug use and creativity. There's a shitload of thematic synergy about nuclear power, though. Whereas The Tommyknockers was about how we were one spark away from blowing ourselves to bits and how unsafe nuclear power is, Godzilla is much more about the devastation of those weapons. This was only 9 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, after all. Those wounds were still fresh, and this is a work of art created from that pain. There's no joy in watching Godzilla stamp its way through Tokyo, ripping apart towers and bridges and leaving a trail of fire in its wake. This is tragedy via monster, a tragedy all too fresh in the mind of the country which made this film. Nowhere is this more apparant than the sad human story of Dr. Serizawa in the movie. He's a scientist who, through tinkering, invented something called the Oxygen Destroyer which can de-oxidize and destroy aquatic life instantly. Absolutely horrified by the destructive potential, he's vowed to keep it a secret until such time as a practical use can be found for it. The other characters learn of this and beg him to let them use it, just this once, to kill Godzilla before it destroys them. It's not until Serizawa sees a news report of the destruction, and the choir of children praying for peace, that he relents. Only once, and he means it... because he knows this is the next step. The atom has been cracked, and it rained death upon Japan in the war. That cat is out of the bag and it horrifies him, but he will not let his Oxygen Destroyer be the next step. He dives down to the depths to use it, cutting himself off from his ship. Serizawa meant for the Oxygen Destroyer to be used the once, and with his notes gone he eliminates the last knowledge of it from this world. Godzilla is done, but the loss it has wrought will remain. Tokyo in ruins. Many dead. A brilliant scientist, sacrificed. The sea is at peace. Godzilla is a deliberate and somber film, a horror of a different type... but by god, is it ever effective. Later films would make it all about the spectacle, and spectacle can be fun! Still, it is important to recognize the message this film was trying to convey at a crucial point in history. Atom bombs are bad shit, yo.