Godzilla Minus One is a MASTERPIECE. What makes it so PROFOUND?

[Music] this past weekend I saw a movie that blew my mind it vastly exceeded any expectation I had going in and that movie is Godzilla minus one I can't believe what I saw I am still deeply moved bu it it is one of the best movies of the year and and if you follow other film review channels I'm not a film review Channel my channel is dedicated to exploring the religious the philosophical ideas embedded in our cultural texts in films in storytelling in television I love exploring that stuff so I am not a film review Channel I have to Rave about this movie I just have to and I want to encourage this is not a paid advertisement I am not seeing a dollar from this I have to encourage each and every one of you go see Godzilla minus one in theaters if you can it is one of the best movies of the year and now that I've set these expectations you might be disappointed I went in with very little expectations I went in because I grew up on Godzilla movies when I got sick as a kid my mom would go over to Blockbuster Video and grab as many VHS tapes of Godzilla movies as she possibly could and I would binge those when I was sick I loved Godzilla as a kid so I took my son to go see this my older son he's 15 years old I would first of all I would not recommend this for younger children I just have to say that from the get-go I went in with very little expectations the trailer looked great uh I'm I I didn't know what to expect have I enjoyed the kind of like American more recent Godzilla movies starting with the one that came out in 2014 yeah they've been fine they've been enjoyable I don't have like really strong feelings one way or the other I will go see a Godzilla movie just cuz I like Godzilla this was so much more than that Godzilla minus one is one of the best films of the year I I know that's going to seem absurd to talk about a Godzilla movie like that but it's not hyperbole Godzilla minus one is a serious and emotional reflection on the trauma of war the role of honor and shame in Japanese culture and and the feeling of powerlessness for those who seem to be frequently visited by job like suffering Godzilla plays a role in this movie No Doubt but this is way more than a Godzilla movie in fact it it's a human movie that just so happens to have Godzilla in it as I was watching this movie there were several other movies that came to mind and I this isn't a spoil I don't want to spoil anything in in talking about this because I want you to just to go out and see it um several movies came to mind one of which is Studio jbl's gravey of the fireflies now good luck finding graveyard of the fireflies on any of the streaming services I don't know if it's being like intentionally censored here last I checked it wasn't on Max or HBO Max or whatever they're calling it today if you've seen gravey of the fireflies you know how emotional that movie is which which follows the family it's set in World War II and it follows the the family of a young boy who has survived a Allied or maybe more specifically an American firebombing during World War II it's a gripping emotional story Godzilla minus one has elements of grave of the fireflies for sure and that doesn't spoil anything you just need to go in knowing this is set during World War II and immediately post World War II and it deeply grapples and wrestles with the trauma of War so go in knowing that that's why I suggest this isn't a movie that I would bring I have a 9-year-old I felt really glad I didn't bring my 9-year-old to this movie it just was just too heavy you're like Paul no way the Godzilla movie can't be that heavy it's it's emotionally heavy I mean I I'm not saying I cried in the movie but there were moments where I I felt deeply moved to tears okay so it's part grave of the fireflies another movie that it reminded me of and this is going to seem like another weird comparison but there are elements especially in the second half in the third Act of the movie there are elements of dunker yes dunker another great film Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk it has elements of dunker which I love I love love that movie I know maybe some of you who like kind of the more sci-fi elements of Christopher Nolan's work might not be as wild about Dunkirk I think Dunkirk is a great film so Godzilla minus one is part grave of the fireflies it's part Dunkirk and of course it is part the original goira Godzilla movie from 1954 and if you know anything about the 1954 Gojira which in the US became known as Godzilla you know that that film was in many ways a parable grappling with the effects of the atomic bomb Godzilla is a monster that that literally is is radioactive he is like a walking AB bomb he breathes atomic fire breath he is devastating and I really can't imagine what seeing that movie would would have felt like to someone in 1954 who who had lived through World War II maybe even had family members that they lost in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that movie must have been terrifying to see in theaters in 1954 I can't even imagine that this movie obviously we are so far removed from the events of Hiroshima and Nagasaki it's it's hard to know how many people still alive today would go go in and want to see a Godzilla movie like this uh that maybe had lived through that I I don't know but this has to be equally if not more terrifying to take in and I in fact think anybody that is a veteran of war that has gone through and is experiencing PTSD from war is definitely going to feel this I thought about my grandfather who was a World War II vet and I never never really knew what the trauma of the war was like he never really talked about it but this movie deeply grapples with how awful war is and the way that we valorize it and the way that we celebrate it especially in American culture there's something disturbing about that when you know the true cost of war the other thing this movie grappled with and I mentioned it already is the role of honor and shame and Japanese culture it was really compelling for me to to behold and to watch this on display in this film it's Japanese with American subtitles I I think that's the best way I don't think there's a dub format of it out there and if it if there was I would not want to see it because even though I don't speak Japanese the acting and the emotion in each character's voice is so and you get a glimpse into the shame and honor-based culture of Japanese Society the collectivist ethos of Japanese Society this movie is really grappling with and this is no spoiler the the protagonist is a kamakazi pilot who simply did not have the courage and whether or not it was the courage whether or not he felt some deep conflict in him over an act of suicide bombing on behalf of his country he comes back not as a hero of War certainly not he comes back as a failure so yeah this movie wrestles with that too it's really really heavy and finally for me one of the the other takeaways was again you really get this emotional sense obviously it's harder for me to connect personally with Japanese culture I've never visited Japan I want to but I I've never lived there I I I'm not Japanese and and so I could appreciate elements of that story and it was deeply inviting to me to step into that world viw and it was very easy to do that as well but I have to confess that the thing that probably touched me even more Beyond even seeing the Beauty and the difficulty of Japanese culture was seeing this other facet of the story which to me felt like it was about people that went through people that go through job like and I'm talking about the biblical Old Testament character of job in the wisdom literature of the Hebrew Bible people who go through job like suffering our protagonist seems to not be able to escape constant cycles of suffering symbolized by the Leviathan that is Godzilla if you don't know what Leviathan is an ancient neare Eastern culture which includes the the semetic Hebrew people the Israelites of the Old Testament in ancient NE Eastern culture especially for people like the Hebrew people who were not a seafaring people the Seas represented chaos in fact many of the surrounding creation myths around Israel dealt with uh primordial forces of Order and Chaos Gods having to defeat orders of chaos and across that ancient near Eastern culture you had actually symbolic monsters that were very Godzilla likee you had symbolic monsters and the Bible gives a couple names of them that would have been common to the ancient Hebrew Israelite culture and those names were Leviathan and Rahab and of course in the story of Job Leviathan is the name that we be most familiar with God in the Whirlwind Whirlwind confronts job talks with job after job's anguish and suffering and he brings up this question of and I'm paraphrasing here but he brings up this question of do you think you can take down Leviathan Leviathan was a symbol not of evil Leviathan wasn't evil it wasn't an incarnation of malevolent Force Leviathan was more a symbol of another category between order and disorder a category that I've talked about in my book disordered a category that we could call non-order so there are elements of the created world that contain yes things that are functioning as they should things that are not functioning as they should because they are disordered usually through some agentic Force using their will in a way that isn't in keeping with the good there are disordered elements but then there's also these other elements and there's as much of what the Book of Job and this movie wrestles with the nonordered chaos of Leviathan the nonordered chaos of Godzilla fitting to that Godzilla emerges from the sea I mean it's just so in keeping with this ancient near Eastern mythology this ancient NE Eastern sense that the waters were chaos and and they were untameable and that there were creatures of the deep that would come up out of the deep to terrorize the world not as an act of Pure Evil but just as an act of non-order like a hurricane like a tornado which we experience maybe as evil because of the devastation that it produces but it's hard for us to point at a hurricane or a tornado or some terrible storm and say that is malevolent that's evil we experience the suffering but there's no real agentic force behind it of course there's some debate about this but that is a great representation of what Godzilla is listen to this description of Leviathan from the Hebrew Bible from what Christians call the Old Testament in the Book of Job job 41 this is a perfect symbol of Godzilla it's almost identical you can actually see the Leviathan likee nature of Godzilla as you're watching Godzilla minus one job 41 can you pull in Leviathan with a fish hook or tie down its tongue with the Rope can you put a cord through its nose or Pierce its jaw with a hook will it keep begging you for Mercy will it speak to you with gentle words will it make an agreement with you for you to take it as your slave for life can you make a pet of it like a bird or put it on a leash for the young women in your house will Traders barter for it will they divide it up among the merchants can you fill its hide with harpoons or its head with fishing Spears if you lay a hand on it you will remember the struggle and never do it again any hope of subduing it is false the mere sight of it is overpowering no one is fierce enough to Rouse it who then is able to stand against me who has a claim against me that I must pay everything under Heaven belongs to me I will not fail to speak a leviathan's limbs its strength and its graceful form who can strip off its outer coat who can penetrate its double coat of armor Who Dares open the doors of its mouth ringed about with fearsome teeth its back has rows of shields tightly sealed together each is so close to the next that no air can pass between they are joined fast to one another they cling together and cannot be parted its snorting throws out flashes of light its eyes are like the Rays of dawn Flames stream from its mouth Sparks of fire shoot out smoke pours from its nostrils as from above Boiling Pot over burning reads its breath sets coals Ablaze and Flames Dart from its mouth strength resides in its neck dismay goes before it the folds of its flesh are tightly joined they are firm and immovable its chest is hard as rock hard as a lower Millstone when it rises up the mighty are terrified they Retreat before its thrashing the sword that reaches it has no effect nor does the spear or the dart or the javelin iron it treats like straw and bronze like rotten wood arrows do not make it flee sling stones are like chaff to it a club seems to it but a piece of straw it laughs at the rattling of the Lance its undersides are Jagged pot shirs leaving a trail in the mud like a threshing Sledge it makes the depths churn like a boiling cauldron and stirs up the sea like a pot of ointment it leaves a glistening wake behind it one would think the Deep had white hair nothing on Earth is its equal a creature without fear it looks down on all that are hoty it is King over all that are proud thanks for watching if you want to see more videos like this click the Subscribe button below you can turn on notifications hitting the like button certainly helps too and in the comments below tell me what you thought about Godzilla minus one

Channel: Paul Anleitner

Views: 258,358

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Id: r20uBgL2K3s

Length: 16min 33sec (993 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 08 2023