One one hand, Godzilla Minus One is a classic monster movie. On the other, the monster is a metaphor for one man's war trauma and his struggle for redemption.
The monster movie is a breathtaking visual experience. Godzilla is terrifyingly portrayed. There is the slow build with the appearance of schools of dead deep sea fish. Fins appear out of the water, like in Jaws, but they are multiple, ominously spiked, and enormous. Where the fin in Jaws announces a presence of dread and terror, Godzilla's fins herald a force of nature that paralyzes us in our helplessness. This is a creature of sheer destruction. While apparently mindless, it is certainly indiscriminate, flattening buildings, machines of war, and people in its wake.
Toho studio once shot actors in rubber suits campily stomping on miniature city skylines. This time, it's moved on to much more realistic levels. Whatever effects -- practical or CGI -- are being used, we are present at ground zero, every impact a gut punch. As scenery is literally blown away, so are we. Watching Ginza getting destroyed is like watching a tsunami made of earth and rubble instead of water, and the aftermath is devastating to behold. Even if we weren't already invested in the human characters in this movie, we still feel the tragedy of each life lost to every 'holy s...!' moment. This is one movie that deserves a cinematic rerun. I'd buy a ticket right now if it got one.
Godzilla, the metaphor, is equally impactful as an exploration into trauma and survivor's guilt. Our hero, Shikishima, should have already been dead even before the start of this movie. A kamikaze pilot who makes an emergency landing on a friendly airstrip without releasing his ordnance is by all accounts a deserter and a coward -- and he knows it. Given a second chance to makes amends, he freezes instead, and watches as everyone dies around him.
A two-time survivor, it's painfully ironic that he has lived although he has nothing to live for. Arriving home to war-devastated Tokyo, he finds he has outlived his parents who perished in the air raids. Between the war and Godzilla, Shikishima is rendered passive and helpless, but also alive bearing an overwhelming load of guilt because of it And like his guilt, Godzilla grows every time he survives another certain death moment.
Meanwhile, he has picked up a sort of family: a girl and a baby, neither of which are biologically related. They move into his place uninvited, but he does nothing to evict them. His passivity is also a kindness, and slowly they become important in his life. He takes on a risky but well-paying job for their sake. However, because of his trauma and guilt, he stops short as a provider but they never become a full-fledged family.
During Godzilla's attack on Ginza, Shikishima again -- and not of his own accord -- survives but suffers another painful loss. With the threat of yet another attack on Tokyo, Shikishima finally understands what motivates a person to sacrifice themselves. He had no real connection to his country before, so he couldn't die for it when he was a kamikaze pilot. Yet connection to country still isn't enough motivation to fly a plane into the enemy. It's one's connection to time -- someone in the past to avenge, and someone's future for whom he would give his life to ensure. It is at this point that he takes control of his life and makes a plan to defeat the monster rampaging through both his city and his psyche. When you have something to live for, then you will be ready to die for it. There are no heroes in such a sacrifice, only redemption. Yet, he will be remembered as a hero whose sacrifice mattered, instead of being one of his fellow kamikaze who sacrificed themselves for something that ultimately didn't.
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