| Matthew Christensen |
Godzilla vs. Gigan plays at the Trylon Cinema from Friday, July 4th, through Sunday, July 6th. For tickets, showtimes, and other series information, visit trylon.org.
My husband Luka and I have divergent tastes in movies.
If I am sitting in the living room watching an old Hollywood musical or a period piece, he takes one look at the television, announces in a mix of Turkish and English, “Tamam. I will be in bed reading a book. Hadi, see you,” and beats a hasty retreat. Similarly, if I come in when Luka is watching a horror flick or superhero film, I generally make a grimace, unseen by him, and slowly retrace my steps. I want to say I am more tolerant of films than he is, but this is a blatant lie. I have my strong biases. I have films I simply will not watch, and while he too has films he will not waste time on, I think over the last few years he has indulged my tastes far more often than I have his.
Our preferences do, however, overlap when it comes to one genre: science fiction. We will happily sit down together to watch anything about imagined dystopic futures or advanced technology run amok. So, when I saw that Trylon was going to be showing Jun Fukuda’s kaiju flick Godzilla vs. Gigan, I saw my chance. Having just finished a six-year stint at an international school in the mountains of Nagano, Japan, I thought this film might give us the chance to talk about the ideas of the film in light of our time abroad and our move back to the US.
But first, a quick synopsis of the film: Alien cockroaches, disguised as humans, plan an amusement park as a cover for their operation to achieve absolute peace by taking over and making Earth their new home. They enlist the help of Gigan, a cyborg space monster, and King Ghidorah, a three-headed dragon, to annihilate humanity. Freelance artist Gengo Odaka, hired to sketch new monsters for the park, finds a tape that betrays the alien plot and alerts Godzilla and Anguirus that trouble is brewing. The rest is an enjoyable series of tag-team monster fights and humans working together to defeat the aliens.
Okay! Now on to a snapshot of our conversation:
Matt: What is your overall impression of Godzilla vs. Gigan?
Luka: The first thing I always think about with the older Godzilla films is the theme of nuclear war. It’s hard not to. And in this one, I really felt impressed by the way they used the idea of duality. Everything has two sides—like a coin. That message was carried throughout this film, and it gave it a strong philosophical foundation. Okay, technologically it looks outdated now. But for its time, it was impressive. What really stood out to me was how the female character, martial artist Tomoko Tomoe (Yuriko Hishimi) ended up being the strong, smart one, replacing heterosexual male strength.
Matt: Did you like the film?
Luka: When I started watching, I had my doubts because I felt it was technologically too simplistic. But when I looked at the people and what [the movie] is trying to tell us with the story, then yes, I really enjoyed it. It gave me the energy to watch more from the series—to see if this is just a one-time thing or if other Godzilla films also have these deeper messages.
Matt: Okay, that’s a good transition here, because for me, apart from the original Godzilla film and Godzilla vs. Hedorah (Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster), and playing the board game Kings of Tokyo, I have very little experience with Japanese kaiju. But of course, this franchise represents the stuff of my childhood growing up in the 70s in America. Summer Saturday afternoon movies on network stations would feature Godzilla films along with Tarzan, The Little Rascals, and Laurel and Hardy. What is your experience with Godzilla films? Was Godzilla a big deal in Türkiye as well?
Luka: We knew Godzilla from the get-go. Because it was so huge, and it didn’t represent US movies. At that time most all our films were from the US. I knew Godzilla more as a toy. I was not aware of the connection with the Second World War and nuclear threat.
Matt: What do you think it is about Godzilla that captures the imagination and has made it so enduring?
Luka: Oh, that’s actually a great question. I guess it is something we have never seen in our lifetime, like dinosaurs. Here’s a lizard that just evolved drastically because of nuclear testing. Another interesting thing about Godzilla being created with nuclear energy is that in this film there are aliens who are cockroaches, insects which are also supposed to be able to withstand nuclear fallout. They both can survive. Also, in real life we don’t know what could happen in the future, but movies like this one explore such ideas.
Matt: I guess it is the nature of science fiction, speculating about the future and what can happen. Now, you mentioned in the beginning that one of the things that impressed you about the film was its exploration of dualities. Can you talk a little bit more about this?
Luka: Okay. There are a lot of core dualities I want to talk about. First, the monsters: we have Godzilla and Anguirus vs. Gigan and King Ghidorah. One side is, let’s say, the good side. But actually, we have another duality because Godzilla isn’t always good. He is more concerned about keeping the balance of nature, right? The second duality is humans vs. non-humans, the Nebulans are cockroaches pretending to be human.
Matt: Speaking of the cockroaches, what’s your take on their idea of absolute peace that they want to create through this World Children’s Land park with Godzilla tower? What is their idea of peace?
Luka: Actually, in this series, one of the themes is that human beings are responsible for the disasters of our world, right? So, the way they understand us is as the thing preventing absolute peace.
Matt: So, we are the vermin?
Luka: Well, we are the cause of the problem. Unlike the cockroaches, we can die.
Matt: A kind of role reversal then. So, we lived in Japan for six years and have just moved back to the States. Do you feel like living in Japan at all shaped your impression of this film? What sorts of ideas did you pick up on that you might not have had you not lived in Japan?
Luka: If I hadn’t lived in Japan, I wouldn’t see the differences.
Matt: Technology. That’s a big thing we saw a lot. We saw Japan both embracing and underusing technology.
Luka: Japan is a place where you see cutting-edge technology and old traditions coexisting. They might have amazing technology, but there’s still a reliance on paperwork, for example. You see utilization of technology in an almost quaint way in the film.
Matt: Do you suppose that they want to hold on to their humanity or cultural identity through tradition?
Luka: We see that tension—between embracing the future and preserving the past—in places in the film.
Matt: Now you mentioned in another conversation that we had that you had an interesting take on how emotion is expressed in this film. Can you talk about it?
Luka: Yes. There’s a kind of gentle emotion, even when things get intense. Anger isn’t expressed with rage; it’s held back or repressed. And I think that emotion is displaced into the monsters. The fights, the blood splatters—especially when Gigan injures Godzilla—might be a way to express things the human characters can’t or distances them from emotion.
Matt: Another aspect of Japanese culture is related to the protagonist, Gengo Odaka (Hiroshi Ishikawa). He is a freelance manga artist. What do you think of the manga elements and how they’re used in the film?
Luka: You just asked me about emotion, reflected on the monsters, right? Early in the film Odaka draws inspiration for a monster from his girlfriend, not only referencing the clothes she is wearing, but from her emotions and attitude. So, he draws from real life.
Matt: Perhaps a kind of meta commentary on how the film creates and views monsters. For me, the manga elements really stood out. For example, having Godzilla talking with Anguirus using word balloons. Then there was the splattering of blood when Gigan attacks Godzilla. I think the blood splatters on the camera. Later Odaka draws life-size characters of himself and his companions to cover up the boxes of TNT in the elevator. The aliens aren’t able to differentiate the image from reality and in shooting at the drawing, detonate the explosives. It is like the whole film inhabits the world of manga.
Luka: Yeah, they believe it; accept things: this is real, this is not real. So, these parts are actually not naïve but very smartly put in the movie. There is a subtle commentary about how we too easily buy into things.
Matt: Okay. So, what is your favorite part of the film?
Luka: The ending song.
Matt: Can you describe it for us?
Luka: It is a wonderful, almost childish song about how Godzilla will save the day and fight for us when we need him (all this is sung as Godzilla and Anguirus return to the deep with the setting sun). He takes on a god-like status. It is a blend of spirituality and hope.
Matt: I think my favorite part has to be when Godzilla—you know, he’s been getting beaten up bad by Gigan and King Ghidorah—approaches the theme park and the first thing he sees is Godzilla Tower. So, he essentially sees himself and we get a POV shot of the tower. Then it cuts back to Godzilla and he kind of bangs the side of his head. It is profoundly funny and infuses humor into the piece. I mean, it’s a fun film anyway.
Luka: It is and its exploration of technology is part of an evolution explored throughout the series of films.
Matt: All right. I think that’s about it. Would you recommend the film to people?
Luka: I do. Absolutely. But I’d suggest learning a bit of the history first.
Matt: Or maybe binge-watch the Showa-era Godzilla films?
Luka: For me, after I watched this, I watched Godzilla Minus One. The monster is still there, but 50 years later it is still human-driven. I like that.
Matt: Me too.
This is probably a good place to conclude, and a good conclusion should have some takeaways. For my part, Godzilla vs. Gigan reminds me of the unique blend of warmth and practical detachment I experienced living in Japan. I was reminded of a time in Karuizawa when I had taken some of my students out for sushi one evening. As they piled up and counted their plates, I snuck out to Mr. Donut to buy everyone a sweet treat. On the way back, I tripped up the stairs to the restaurant and fell on the box of doughnuts, right in the middle several passersby. Everyone froze momentarily, then kept on walking as if I didn’t exist. My first thought was that they were uncaring, but really it wasn’t that at all. These witnesses to my embarrassment stoically moved on to spare me further humiliation by drawing even more attention to it. And I thank them for that. Back at Mr. Donut, the bakers, saw the box and figured out what had happened. They came to me smiling, took the crushed box, opened it up to assess the damage, and efficiently put together another dozen free of charge. I suppose if there is any connection to be made in this wandering anecdote, it is that the film, like the country, does not engender in me any warm fuzzies and yet it does touch at something—a kind of practical nostalgia.
I asked Luka for his concluding thoughts as well. He very wisely observed that exploring genres (specifically culture-based sub-genres such as kaiju films) and talking about the ideas these films deal with deepens our understanding of and appreciation for the societies, values, and traditions they come from. “In the end,” he says, “weren’t we really just talking about Japan?”
Edited by Olga Tchepikova-Treon