Finally got to see SHIN GODZILLA, made last year by writer/director Hideaki Anno, whose name you may know from NEON GENESIS EVANGELION. It is recognisably Anno from the top – the staring, dead animal eyes of the creature at the top of the movie could really only be his touch. SHIN GODZILLA, known elsewhere as GODZILLA RESURGENCE, updates the original by adding the bureaucratic nightmare of the Fukushima reactor disaster to its core theme. And it works brilliantly, imagining the response to the emergence of Godzilla as paralysed by procedure and politics, much as the response to Fukushima was.
It’s an extraordinary illustration of what you can make when you toss all the tired filmic conventions of saying it emotionally and learning and hugs and the hero’s journey and making sure everyone’s crying and just telling the story you want to tell without diluting or breaking it. SHIN GODZILLA is a peculiarly pure experience.
(originally written 2 May 2017, recovered from morning.computer)
