The Sun in My Eyes
About the Sun, I completely agree with Paul on his review of the Sun, however, where the movie failed for me was the absolute miscast by Sokurov to pick Robert Dawson as MacArthur. This was a tragic and a huge miscalculation on all fronts, and quite frankly, and amateurish mistake by a decent director. Having seen Moloch but not Taurus, the Sun being billed as part of Sokurov's "tetrology" about emperors, dictators, rulers, etc. (Moloch was about the dead-pan, social aspect, dissection of Eva Braun and Hitler). With all of his past flaws aside from past films, let me focus on the Sun. Robert Dawson is a decent man, I'm sure, trying hard to bust through the wall with his "big break", and by all means Sokurov handed him fastidiously MacArthur on a silver platter, couldn't have been better for Mr. Dawson. And most genuinely (potentially) great actors will come up on top and deliver; and there are also the other half of the acting population who are handed a "big break" and of course faded away like ice in water. I believe, sadly, Robert Dawson fits the bill of the latter. If you were to carefully comb through the credentials of Robert Dawson you will see that even as an extra, the films he appeared in as an extra in are third tier films. Films that you don’t just miss Dawson if you blink, they’re films of the caliber that if you blink and you forget everything about the entire film. Let’s play a game, I will now pretend to be Sokurov and review Mr. Dawson’s resume, what will be the one role that will convince me to give this heavy character of MacArthur to Dawson. The Competition, Richard Dreyfuss 1st attempt at a lead in a movie (Not in Close Encounters of the 3rd kind, I consider the SFX and the Aliens, and some degree Truffaut, as the leads), flanked by soon to be Mrs. Spielberg and Mrs. Ex-Spielberg, Amy Irving. Dawson, you played “Recorder Player” humm, ok, ok, that was you first officially gig, it’s ok, let move on. The Couch Trip, let me just sum this dismal masterpiece with the list of the lead cast, Dan Aykroyd, Walter Matthau, Charles Grodin, Donna Dixon, ok, let me stop before I become sick inside, you played “man at party.” Humm, let’s keep going. Your next one is a TV movie, lets save us both the embarrassment and skip that one. Ok, then we got, dear god, Fletch Lives, yes, that Fletch Lives, yes, that Chevy Chase, ok, same as the last one, let's just skim through it and see what catches our eyes, Class of Nuke’Em High, part II-Subhumanoid Meltdown no less, blah, blah, blah, meaningless TV film extra roles. Obscure B-movie roles, moving up from being extra, getting more meaty rol….oops, back as an extra as the Embassy Employee in The Card Player, then a lead role in a TV movie, then here we are, The Sun. The audition was phenomenal, astounding, ridiculously brilliant, or maybe Dawson came cheap and money was tight (money is always tight or Dawson just uses his tongue very well…so be the case, because in the end the movie is not entirely about the relationship with Hirohito and MacArthur (not entirely), however, Issei Ogata, didn’t come off the acting boat like Dawson, especially Edward Yang’s masterpiece Yi Yi: A One and a Two. For me is a matter of what both actors bring to the role, Ogata brought his A game, he had to, this was the Emperor of Japan we’re talking about, both prestige and stigma attached to the role, while Dawson brought what he has under his belt, Recorder Player, Man at Party…this singularity, is the discrediting factor of The Sun’s inability to move beyond meditations in caricature to a complex character study between two people that lead two nations through a war that neither men completely understood and to a certain extent; wanted involvement. Dawson’s weak link snapped the whole chain that is The Sun. In the end, Sokurov is as much to blame for such negligence as Dawson’s own acting. Movies like The Sun do not direct themselves. Check out Downfall, the German counterpart to The Sun, of course Hitler was a more well define evil of WWII, and in some ways easier to dissect than Hirohito (I feel a bit over done here by Bruno Ganz – ironically was considered for the part of Schindler in Schindler’s List – but I guess you have too be crazy and over the top to murder 8 million plus people). Hirohito is not so easily labeled as most of the outsiders of Japan (including other Asian countries that suffered under the cruelty of the Imperial Army that quickly dismisses Hirohito as guilty by association) have come to believe. I know a lot about Hirohito, and both side of the argument, my ancestry and hatred for the crimes of the Japanese Imperial Army of WWII refuses to give quarter to anything Japanese of WWII, in the same respect, the facts are so squeaked and manipulated to the point that I have very little confidence in Hirohito’s involvement or disengagement with the goings-on of the Pacific conflict to make a rational assessment; and who knows if the facts were manipulated to protect Hirohito from persecution, because if the embodiment of Japan was on trial for crimes against humanity, then all of Japan would also be sticking it’s head in the noose as well. But is responsibility and reconciliation such a bad thing? I don’t know, ask a German.
Final thought is only to say that The Sun, as Paul states, labors hard not to be a political podium to the viewers; but in the end, it can’t help but get involved into the political canvas, especially when you are speaking of Hirohito and MacArthur or else it will be a shoe seller trying to sell shoes without shoe strings…yeah…good luck with that, so I would personally believe that Sokurov should have spent more time with his actors and less time trying not to be political; or if he is insistent, may I suggests remaking Marie Antoinette? You can't get less meaningless or political as that. Sayonara, The Sun.
Labels: Parasite Reviews
