Solntse

The predictably unreliable Russian filmmaker Alexander Sokurov has shot this wonderfully eccentric and fascinating film about the last days of Emperor Hirohito's reign as if it were a science-fiction film. And indeed, the otherworldly Hirohito (Issey Ogata) certainly does suggest a somewhat less cuddlesome E. T., both in his alienation from the quotidian world (the coddled emperor can barely dress himself) and in his relationship with his nominally more human protector, in this case General MacArthur (Robert Dawson). Shot in 35 millimeter in the filmmaker's preferred brackish tones, "The Sun" traces Hirohito as he wanders about his compound engaged in meaningless rituals and surrounded by minders who are as much his guards as his servants. In one of the most revelatory scenes, Hirohito, an amateur scientist, dons a white lab coat to examine the pickled remains of a hermit crab. As he waxes poetic about this pathetic pale specimen, there can be no doubt that the emperor - an all-too-human man raised as a god - is effectively staring into a mirror. Mr. Ogata, whose mouth incessantly opens and shuts as if the emperor were nothing more than a very costly pet carp, is mesmerizing. This is the third in a trilogy of films about dictators by Mr. Sokurov, who remains best known here for the technological marvel "Russian Ark." More approachable and certainly far more enjoyable than the first films in the trilogy, "Moloch" (about Hitler) and "Taurus" (Lenin), "The Sun" envisions Hirohito as somewhat of a victim of history without ever suggesting that the emperor should be excused for the role he played in the tragedy of war. This take may not sit well with historians or the literal-minded, but as a portrait of pathology — that of Japan and of Hirohito both — it's terrific. — Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

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