After learning about the reasons for the popularity of monster films in Japan, I could not help but reflect on what it is about a movie that attracts the audience’s attention. In the past, I would say that it is the admiration for trends, the artistic expression of beauty, and the empathy for the story. Now I still think so, but there is a unified standard above them – the spirit of the film.
Monster films have endured in Japan, at first because their lives were greatly affected by the mushroom cloud, and later as an artistic communication of such films as a tragic aesthetic, and finally, as the hope for urban renewal.
The messy conditions of the past were shared at this moment. These films have been popular for 70 years because of their high compatibility with Japan in all aspects. The films are expressing, presenting, and ultimately celebrating the spirit of the nation in a cinematic way, fusing the country and the films spiritually.
This is perhaps the connection between the architecture and those films: every reconstruction is based on deconstruction, while falling to the bottom can only prove that every step taken in the future is upward.
Hong Lam, Law
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It is interesting how you brought in and tried to explore this idea of ‘the spirit of the film’ in your response to the reading. Perhaps you can further discuss the factor of time and how we can observe changes and continuities through the genre of the monster film.