The Sun

The Sun sheds only so much literal light on its chosen subject; it's a film of shadows and silence, the calm before and after the storm. But everything you see and hear carries weight and an eerie poetic undercurrent.

The result is not to make the emperor sympathetic so much as it is to tug at the mask of despotic glory. In the end, he is only a man.

Sokurov, who also acted as director of photography, films the character and his surroundings with the eye of a newly arrived visitor to another world.

Though he successfully humanizes Hirohito, who is shown happily shedding his divinity, Sokurov doesn't entirely exonerate him. He contrives a shock ending that, as measured as everything else in this engrossing, supremely assured movie, acknowledges one last blood sacrifice on the emperor's altar.

This emperor verges on dementia, having no apparent clue how to function.

The setting, largely confined to the laboratory building and underground bunker of the otherwise bombed-out Imperial Palace, makes for somewhat claustrophobic viewing but effectively enhances the hermetically sealed feeling of Hirohito's royal life.

Reflecting on Sokurov’s other recent work – like “Russian Arc” for example – The Sun is a giant step down. It’s an outrageously long-winded drama that’s awfully directed with the skill of a high school play.