Notes on Godzilla: Gojira tai Hedora (1971)

Yoshimitsu Banno, JP 1971, colour, 96 min, DF, 35mm

In the year of its 60^th anniversary, I watched a Godzilla movie entirely for the first time.

One coworker at our local uni cinema actually printed a list of the Godzilla filmography which made me feel rather ignorant – regarding it's length - of what was going on in Japanese popular cinema since as early as 1954. What I knew before already was that Gojira traditionally could be interpreted as the cultural response to Japanese anxiety of nuclear weapons after WWII, Nagasaki and Hiroshima. This version from 1971 nonetheless proves that Gojira finally turned from an incorporation of terror to a clumsy, friendly hero saving Japanese population.

To give you a short plot summary: Japan is covered in waste of industrial society of the 70s. An alien mutant life-form with what have been described as "vagina-shaped red eyes" * named Hedora (japan. Hedoro: chemical waste) takes advantage of pollution and grows bigger and meaner by devouring cars, regardless of cruelly killing puppies and human babies... Japanese hippie youth is startled with shock while Hedora's smog is deadly to anybody. This is where Gojira's primeval shriek grows out of nowhere and some epic laser battles - obviously produced in suitmation - take place. The viewer experiences this mostly from the point of view of enthusiastic little Ken and his family, his father being an all-rounder scientist who in the end defeats the pollution- monster together with mighty Gojira. Man, I loved this movie!

Still, since we all know who's gonna win in the end, it's not so much about the story, but about it's aesthetics. What I was reminded of by seeing this movie in 2014, is that there's more than just one way to show a giant monster on the screen. In some way, during the movie, I freed myself from 3D viewing habits. Actual miniature models do work, too. Plus: where they don't, they are a whole lot of fun. Check out the trailer here:

Every now and then, some rather abstract animated comics are interwoven with the story and at times it gets quite experimental when it comes to split screens and image collages during dream sequences of little Godzilla admirer Ken.

Just some quick words on the German version we played this week. Apparently, since German distributors had the success of an earlier Japanese movie starring Frankenstein in mind, what they did was to name Godzilla, at least in the title, "Frankenstein", too. So the full German title went: "Frankensteins Kampf gegen die Teufelsmonster". (Still, it didn't have the slightest to do with Mary Shelley's early horror novel.)

The randomness reflects in the German synchro of the 70s. As a kid of the 90s,*2 I was constantly being reminded of the Heidi anime (Zuiyo Enterprise, 1974) on kids channel. At the end, Ken shouts: "Auf Wiedersehen, Godzilla! Auf Wiedersehen!" to a romantic view of Mount Fujii in the sunset. - If you would kindly replace "Godzilla" with "Peter", and Mount Fujii with the Alps here.

The kids channel impression also reoccured during numerous conversations between Ken and his father, the devoted scientist. These dialogues work like some sort of childrens' scientific programme consisting out of cheerful question-and-answer-games. In one sentence, both nuclear fission AND the nature of the evil monster get explained.

When thinking about the movie as a movie of the horror genre, is the fact that in Gojira tai Hedora, the scientist is a good character actually, and not some maniac. (e.g. Dr. Frankenstein!) Also, the media are reliable and the Japanese state is offering help in form of soldiers and helicopters. These are reasons for which I would locate the movie in the classical horror: It seems clear that evil will be defeated eventually. *3

All in all, the movie was a very rich experience for me. It's quite a mind twist to note that throughout the Godzilla movies, the monster's radioactive breath basically became connotated with quite the opposite of what it used to mean. Go clean energy!
Still, I think you really have to like your "trash" in movies. Maybe I'm gonna go see this year's U.S. production "Godzilla" (Gareth Edwards) for a comparison. And then maybe I don't, since I probably know my favorite already. :-)

*All evil has something female to it. For further information, look up: Vagina dentata. 

*2 Yep, I just used that phrase.
*3 My inspiration on this: Andrew Tudor: Monsters and Mad Scientists. A Cultural History of the Horror Movie. Blackwell, Oxford 1989, ISBN 0-631-15279-2.