(1971) Directed by Yoshimitsu Banno; Written by Yoshimitsu
Banno and Takeshi Kimura; Starring: Akira Yamauchi, Toshie Kimura, Hiroyuki
Kawase, Toshio Shiba and Keiko Mari; Available on Blu-ray and DVD
Rating: ***
“I just planned a regular movie, but when I look on the
internet some people seem to evaluate it like a pop art or surrealist film.” –
Yoshimitsu Banno (from 2014 interview for SciFi Japan TV Extra)
“Why complain about it? Green pastures exist only in our
hearts now. Let’s sing. Let’s dance! Let’s at least use our energy to make a
stand!” – Yukio Keuchi (Toshio Shiba)
After his auspicious debut in 1954’s Gojira (or Godzilla, King of
the Monsters on these shores), the big gray reptile enjoyed a rocky career against
many worthy and not-so-worthy opponents, vacillating between villain and hero. The
strangest was yet to come, however, with 1971’s Godzilla vs. Hedorah (Gojira
tai Hedora in Japan, or alternatively, Godzilla
vs. The Smog Monster),* filled with non-sequitur psychedelic dance
sequences, trippy music and animated portions. For this entry, director/co-writer
Yoshimitsu Banno took the already time-worn elements of what we’ve come to
expect from a Godzilla film, dumped
them on the floor, and rearranged the pieces in his own mosaic. The results created
a rift between Godzilla fans, who
felt it trashed the series or brought life into it.
* Fun Fact: Godzilla
vs. Hedorah featured one of the final appearances of the late Haruo
Nakajima, who portrayed the title kaiju since Gojira in 1954.
From the movie’s opening title sequence, we can tell this
isn’t going to be the same old, same old. A factory belches smoke in front of
Mt. Fuji, followed by shots of garbage floating in the sea. This pastiche of
pollution’s greatest hits is juxtaposed with James Bond-esque shots of a singer
wiggling to the title song. In a final shot, a broken clock (Signifying time’s
up?) floats among other ocean-borne detritus. Only a few minutes into this, I’m
wondering if someone slipped something extra in my coffee. I don’t have much
time to process what I just watched, because it gets weirder. Hedorah rises
from the ocean, the product toxic sludge, garbage and sewage (Yep folks, Hedorah
is essentially a poop monster). After years of abuse to Mother Earth, it’s time
to pay the piper. The monster feeds off of industrial smoke, leaving a cloud of
caustic fumes in its wake, and a trail of death and destruction. Godzilla makes
his appearance, accompanied by some oddly comical music (Akira Ifukube’s
signature theme is nowhere to be found), and he’s not pleased with the state of
things.
Tokyo gets a well-deserved respite from destruction this
time around, with most of the action occurring in Suruga Bay* and the
surrounding locale. Our grade-school protagonist Ken (Hiroyuki Kawase) and his
father Dr. Yano (Akira Yamauchi) try to uncover Hedorah’s secrets, discovering
four stages for the shape-shifting kaiju: aquatic, terrestrial, airborne,
followed by an unknown phase. Although Earth-bound pollutants brought Hedorah
to life, Dr. Yano speculates a meteor brought Hedorah to Earth from “a sticky,
dark planet,” but aside from a few pictures of celestial objects, there’s not
much to support this theory. Meanwhile, Ken’s uncle Yukio (Toshio Shiba) and
his girlfriend Keiko (Miki Fujiyama) combat the toxic menace with music and
dancing (I’m not really sure how this is supposed to help).
* Not so Fun Fact: The heavily polluted region set a real-life
precedent for the movie, as described in this vintage New York Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/1970/08/17/archives/japan-urged-to-save-polluted-harbor.html.
Amidst all the unconventional stuff, Godzilla vs. Hedorah follows the usual formula: Godzilla tangles with the bad guy, and the bad
guy prevails, but only for the moment – we know our favorite mutant dinosaur
isn’t down for the count. Alas, that’s where convention ends and Banno’s vision
begins. One of the advantages of being a casual kaiju film fan is that I don’t
have a fit over what’s supposedly canon, which is a good thing when trying to
make sense of this movie. When Banno came onboard, he threw a lot out the
window. In one sequence, when Hedorah attempts to escape, Godzilla pursues him
by taking flight,* using his atomic breath as propulsion (He does what? In this
movie he does.). Banno’s film is full of so many crazy moments, it’s difficult
to pin down only one or two things. There’s a Lovecraftian vibe running through
the movie, starting with Hedorah’s design, with its tendril-laden face, which
has more than a passing resemblance to Cthulhu. In one scene, dancers in a club
suddenly transform into fish-headed monstrosities that could have sprung from Dagon.
* Fun Fact: According to Banno, he created Godzilla’s
flying scene so it could be easily edited out if Toho disapproved.
It’s not too surprising this was the first and last Godzilla film that Banno directed, but it’s
one of cinema’s tragedies that he never directed anything else (producer Tomoyuki
Tanaka reportedly wasn’t pleased with the results). It’s also not much of a revelation
the big guy will ultimately prevail, but this one ends on a tentative note. We
know it’s only a matter of time before another Hedorah surfaces. Humanity has
only gained a brief reprieve by tackling the symptoms but not the cause. We
haven’t learned much in the ensuing decades since Godzilla vs. Hedorah. Considering the poor state of the planet
these days, it’s about time for Hedorah to re-surface. Unfairly maligned for
many years, this Godzilla film like no other deserves re-evaluation on its own
terms, as a silly movie about a serious topic.
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