The Sun

The Sun completes Sokurov’s trilogy ( Moloch [1999] about Hitler, and Taurus [2001] dealing with Lenin’s death) by focussing on Emperor Hirohito at the close of World War 2. At the heart of this film is an astonishing performance by Issei Ogata, hunkered down into a set of mouth gestures which indicate both the Emperor’s hesitancy and his sympathy for marine creatures rather than people. Like Sokurov’s Russian Ark (AFF03) this is a richly atmospheric film full of small marvels, from the bombers destroying Tokyo imagined as darting fish, to a wonderfully intricate scene in which the shy and polite emperor and an equally deferential scientist take a full minute of manoeuvring before they can get themselves seated, to the interactions with MacArthur as a cautious conqueror who relishes holding the fate of a defeated god in his hands.

The Sun resembles a dream-like newsreel filmed by a secret camera deep in the emperor's bunker.

J.G. Ballard