Kaiju week begins...

Good morning Consumers, This is Please Consume, the film newsletter that loves you more than Quentin Tarantino loves feet.

With Godzilla Minus One coming to theaters and the recent release of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters we knew we couldn’t go without covering the kaiju genre (or big monsters for the uninformed). So without further ado let’s jump into it.

Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964)

Written by Tom Fortner

When I got the assignment for a week on Kaiju films (a genre created by Godzilla co-creators Ishiro Honda and Eiji Tsuburaya, translating to ‘strange beast’) I was more than a bit concerned. I had never seen a Godzilla or King-Kong film, which are the two Kaiju franchises that leapt to mind, and I had honestly never been drawn to viewing them. Not that they’re bad, I just wasn’t interested in watching a monster destroy a city (except Cloverfield). Call me crazy but that’s how I felt.

And so, I did some quick research on Letterboxd about Godzilla films and landed on Mothra vs. Godzilla. Here are my thoughts.

This Movie is Weird

Now, obviously this movie is going to be a little out there. I mean, it’s about two giant monsters fighting each other! But it went way beyond what I was expecting. This film includes two twin miniature singing women, a collection of songs of apparent enchantment, and an ending that can’t be seen as anything other than a massive sexual innuendo. It’s bonkers.

 But that didn’t take away from the film! In fact, I would say that it made it better, more entertaining, just because of how unexpectedly wacky it got. 

 However, on the flip side was a much darker story, one of political distrust and environmental destruction. It’s no secret that Godzilla was born out of the collective societal trauma of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and Mothra vs. Godzilla puts that on full display. The villains here are the greedy businessmen who are trying to profit at the expense of the natural world. In the background is a politician who only cares about being reelected (played effectively by Kenzo Tabu) and an incompetent government (“You know what they say about the government: ‘“Right away” means six months, “timely” means two years, and “after deliberation” means five or six’”). It’s in this stark backdrop that Mothra and Godzilla have their fight, neither one really to blame for the destruction they wreak.

Oh, What a Sight!

I’d be remiss if I didn’t spend some time discussing the special effects in the film. The man behind the effects is Eiji Tsuburaya, basically the father of Japanese special effects and who worked on over 250 films over 50 years. Some regard him as of importance in Japanese cinema on par with Akira Kurosawa, and it’s easy to see why. The effects are stunning. Sure, most of them are very clearly miniatures, but that doesn’t matter! They work on an inherent level; we are enthralled by the story and impressed with the artistry, not taken out of the film. They look gorgeous and it’s delightful to watch Tsuburaya’s artistry on display. 

 The highlight of the film is definitely Mothra’s egg. No matter if it’s in a closeup or seen from a distance, it’s just an amazing work of special effects. The shot of it in the water, especially, looks incredibly realistic.

 As for Godzilla, he’s famously a man in a rubber suit, namely Haruo Nakajima who wore the mask from 1954 to 1972. It’s crazy to hear the stories coming from the guys who wore the Godzilla suits. Apparently, it was a constant unholy temperature inside the suit and sometimes the wire would even poke through the rubber and cut them. As a result, the actors had many health problems related to Godzilla. Big shout-out to those guys! They did great work.

Today’s Scene