The Sun

The Millenium's First Work of Genius
Sokurov has superceeded even his recent achievements with this simply awesome piece. Ogata's staggering performance as Emporer Hirohito is the film's pivot. Not a moment of exaggeration, mannerism or overstated camerawork. The interplay of a gloved hand, of light catching the lower rim of one eye, the regimented deep space of the palace, the ambient short-wave sound track in Hirohito's study as he jots off a haku - the list is long. An apocolyptic dream shakes him from a noonday nap. It's one of cinema's most impressive dream sequences, in keeping with the Emporer's biological passions. Later, he scans a print of Durer's,'Four Riders' which, when the camera pounces on him from behind, mysteriously enlargens so that Hirohito's head swims in its detail. As a sustained study of profound pathos, the film has no equal. The Emporer's Chaplinesque antics before the GI's cameras in his front garden are unspeakably humiliating. The annihilation of the Empire, and with it the sombre lifestyle,...

Subdued, Contemplative Examination of Japanese Emperor's Surrender.
"The Sun" is the third film in Russian director Aleksandr Sokurov's tetralogy about powerful political figures as they suffer personally from their poor decisions. The first two films were about Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. "The Sun" is about Hirohito, Emperor of Japan, just after the Japanese surrender in 1945. The Emperor (Issey Ogata) is under house arrest in a building on the grounds of the Imperial Palace while the Allies decide what to do with him. He is attended by a chamberlain (Shiro Sano) and an elderly manservant, who try to preserve his normal routine. He is briefed by his ministers on the state of the war effort, he studies marine biology, takes a nap, writes his son, sees a guest, and meets General Douglas MacArthur (Robert Dawson), Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers in Japan, for the first time.

The way Sokurov presents this series of events gives the impression that it all happened in one day. Looking closely, that is not explicit but implicit,...

not for every taste but an interesting piece of historical fiction
***1/2

Alexander Sokurov's austere, moody and claustrophobic chamber piece, "The Sun," takes place in Tokyo in 1945, just as the victorious American forces are overtaking the city. The focus of the film is on Emperor Hirohito (believed by his subjects to be a direct descendent of the Sun goddess Amaterasu ) who, holed up in a bunker in the royal palace, agonizes over how such an ignominious fate could have befallen his nation and his people - and the part he himself may have played in bringing that outcome about.

Hirohito spends much of the first half of the film engaging in deep introspection and personal recrimination, blaming himself for having placed too much faith in the power of the Empire and for relying too heavily on the enthusiasm of the soldiers rather than properly equipping the army. Meanwhile, he pores over old family photo albums as well as pictures of glamorous Hollywood stars of the time, suggesting that he clearly doesn't despise all things...

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