The Sun 2004, 110 min., 35 mm, colour, Dolby Digital Nikola–film Proline Film Downtown Pictures (Italy) Mact Productions (France) Riforma Film (Svizerland) with the support of: Federal Agency for Culture and Cinematography of Russian Federation, RAI Cinema (Italy), Istituto Luce (Italy), Centre National de la Cinematographic (France) with the participation of: CTC Television Network, Lenfilm studio Producer: Igor Kalenov Andrei Sigle Marco Muller Screenplay: Yury Arabov Camera: Anatoly Rodionov Director of Sound: Sergey Moshkov Production Design: Yelena Zhukova Yury Kuper Editor: Sergey Ivanov Starring: Issey Ogata Robert Dawson also Featuring: Kaori Momoi Shiro Sano Shinmei Tsuji Taijiro Tamura Georgy Pitskhelauri “The Sun” is the third chapter of my film tetralogy and is inextricably linked to its predecessors: “Moloch” and “Taurus”. What is it that unites them first of all? The key is the depiction of the hero who suffers a personal tragedy. We meet Hitler in “Moloch” at the onset of a collapse of his individuality. We see Lenin in “Taurus”, strong, violent, not willing to surrender to death, in love with power. Each one of them faces a catastrophe caused by their own decisions and actions. Hitler brings the situation to a senseless tragedy: it is clear that the war is lost but, fulfilling his will, soldiers continue to die. He takes many lives with him to non–existence. And Lenin resists non–existence too — it's as if he casts into the future his dying despair, his intolerance. It appears that there are different ways out of tragic situations. The Japanese Emperor Hirohito is a symbol of a constructive finale or, more accurately, not a finale but a continuation — of life. It is possible to see with an inner gaze, ruins in a destroyed city, but one can also see dozens of spared buildings — to put it in perspective. For that there is the need of a special human nature. A small, puny, thin–voiced scientist involved in hydrobiology, Hirohito was the most unlikely tyrant. His palace was burned down during a bombing raid by the Americans and the Emperor lived either in his bunker underground or in the only spared stone building in the palace grounds — the laboratory. He didn't look like a bloodthirsty god of war at all. Rather, Hirohito preferred the saving of human lives to the idea of national pride. This is the great legacy of Hirohito and of those American politicians who could understand and appreciate his position. In 1945 Hirohito and MacArthur found a way out of a seemingly impossible situation. This is a lesson — good can be strong and clever. It is difficult to define and understand power in Japan. Japan is typified by a quiet, indistinct, deep, and repressed power. The Japanese are not Asian people. They are closer to the Englishmen with their island self–consciousness. And they have the same mission, but the peaks and troughs of development are different. On the face of it, there seems little difference between the worship for the Emperor of Japan or, for example, that of Stalin. Exaltation of the institution of power entered deeply into the consciousness of human society long ago. And it is difficult to imagine what needs to be done today to convince people that the power is not given by God. The Japanese represent a different human world. This total separation gives birth to unique examples of delicacy and grace as well as hard–heartedness. Hirohito added one more colour to the picture of the world that we are trying to portray, to create. This is a new side of a human character that is impossible to comprehend totally. The character is the element. The character is an inexhaustible artistic object… …I don't make films about dictators, but I make films about those people who are more outstanding than the rest of them. They appeared to be in possession of ultimate power. But human frailty and passion affect their deeds more than the status and circumstances. Human qualities and character are higher than any historical situation — higher and stronger. From an interview with Alexander Sokurov Summary The third Alexander Sokurov’s film about twentieth century rulers, who determined the political climate of the modern world, is devoted to the Emperor Hirohito, who ruled from 1926 to 1989. The heroes of the previous pictures from this cycle (Hitler and Lenin) had subdued their own destiny and the destiny of their nation to the struggle for power. Power over the Country of the Rising Sun was destined for the descendant of the divine sunlike monarchic dynasty by right of a birth, though it was a symbolic power. But the personal choice of the Emperor was marked in history by the disavowal of the God–given predetermination of his status and a bloody nation struggle for national military prestige — for the preservation of the country and its future well–being. Emperor Hirohito was one of a few powerful persons in 20th century who had preferred life over the fetish. The circumstances during which this choice was made in Summer 1945, after the end of the Second World War, underlie the plot of the film. The bombing of Tokyo by American aviation, which destroyed the capital and its inhabitants, capitulation of Japan to save national resources, the occupation of the country by enemy Allied forces without resistance by the numerous and well–equipped Japanese army — this is the historical background of the personal drama of the Emperor–defeatist. The individual qualities of the Emperor — a scientist and a literary man — not conforming to his mission as the charismatic Leader of the militarized country proved to be the only way to political compromise. The meeting of the Emperor and Commander-on–Chief Macarthur in the film is determined as the culmination of the confrontation: between the traditional hermetically secluded ritual and democratic values, between intolerance and humility, between the figure, carrying all the weight of the responsibility for his nation, and the vain ambitions of the society, which had built up his personality cult. Each member of this dialogue, both the Japanese sovereign and the American general, resolves this conflict inside himself — to get into contact with each other. Because only a human is a reference point on the scale of world values, and only the life of everybody is the pledge of a common future. And the movie, shot by Sokurov, guides the spectator to this result, especially relevant today. Faust’s propensity to life–creation and Mephistophelean destructive element is the lot of man, and the continuation or the catastrophe of life depends on his choice. The fourth, final film of Sokurov’s tetralogy will be called: “Faust”. Alexandra Tuchinskaya Translation by Tatiana Moshkova Prizes and awards: 2005. National Award of Russian cinema critics and the cinema press “White Elephant” in nomination “The best director’s work”.