Set just a few years after World War II, the film features no Americans and doesn't assign them blame for anything related to the nuclear themes. That in itself is a refreshing change. What’s even more remarkable is how the film allows its genre protagonist to emerge gradually - a deeply ordinary, vulnerable, and traumatized figure, surrounded by other fragile characters, including two outstandingly written female roles.
What I also love, something that’s true of many Asian films, and certainly applies here, is how unafraid they are to show the hero at his lowest point, as someone truly despicable. Someone we have to learn to respect, just as he has to learn to respect himself. In this case, that journey unfolds against the backdrop of a monster on the outside, one that pales in comparison to the trauma within.
The film is cleverly structured, beginning with the story of an individual, then expanding to a couple, then a small group, a larger collective, and finally an entire nation. In the end, and somewhat unexpectedly, it narrows its focus again, to two wounded characters who went through hell in the very first scene. For them, the war is still not over.
The structure of the film shifts significantly at exactly the one-hour mark, when the hero awakens after the explosion. This moment serves as an imaginary pivot around which both the micro-level story of the protagonist and the macro-level story of the fictional world revolve.
For most of the film, Godzilla functions primarily as a tool, albeit a damn impressive one. He’s shot in the spirit of tradition, with a strong emphasis on scale, using low angles and low framing to highlight his overwhelming presence. I also love how the filmmakers held back the classic music theme until just the right moment. And what’s more—this time, Godzilla doesn’t just have radioactive breath… he generates focused atomic explosions.
On the other hand, where this film diverges from the original Godzilla movies of the 1950s and ’60s is in its psychological characterization. Those earlier films tended to replace psychological development with the use of Japanese melodramatic genre conventions, which skillfully motivated sudden shifts in decision-making and character motivations. (This is not my insight, but that of my former student Dan Krátký, from his book KRÁL MONSTER!).
GODZILLA MINUS ONE is also fascinating when viewed as a parallel to the 2014 film GODZILLA, which I likewise consider an excellent work. In my view, Edwards’ film defied Hollywood conventions by rendering all human effort essentially irrelevant; it’s a story of three giant monsters acting out a drama that unfolds almost entirely independent of anything humans do... or can do. (With Godzilla, in that film, functioning more or less like a birth control pill. :))
In GODZILLA MINUS ONE, by contrast, there’s an exciting shift—especially within the context of Japanese Godzilla films—toward a more psychological approach to the characters and a highly tactical confrontation with the monster. Interestingly, though, the two plans put forward in the film actually mirror those in the first two entries of the series: one based on physics (a collective strategy), and the other centered on an airplane (the hero’s personal plan).
I truly hope that, in this unusual strike year, with so few new films being shot, we’ll start to see more films and major releases from countries whose productions rarely make it into European cinemas. And honestly, it’s almost unbelievable that GODZILLA MINUS ONE was made on just 5 to 10 percent of the budget of most 2023 Hollywood blockbusters! So yes, let’s go to the cinema!
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I also recommend reading the commentary written by my friend, film and media scholar Colin Burnett, as well as subscribing to his entire excellent channel on Letterbox here.
