a damned great finale to an excellent kaiju trilogy... dare i say on par with even godzilla vs destoroyah?
seeing the personal scale of everything was such an excellent directorial choice. in the earlier gamera films, while we did see glimpses of the kaiju conflicts affecting the common life of every day people, this one took it at a more ambiguous perspective. gamera, the guardian of the universe, resembling a nebulous force of nature destroying countless buildings in his path, with his conflicts towards the gyaos sending others flying from its explosions, with burnt up chunks of kaiju flesh descending from the sky and crushing the desperate citizens fleeing for their lives. we can't help but empathize for ayana for losing her parents because we saw what these kaiju are capable of firsthand. its easy to forget when every gamera film has had the larger scale fights be so distant from the camera as if to capture every single ounce of spectacle it has to offer, that we forget the true proportions it entails when compared to how tiny and fragile we are in the grand scheme of things.
rightfully, the people at hand should be pissed at gamera. that much is for certain. how much can we really rely on a 'guardian of the universe' to protect us? should this really be a preservation of the status quo? to helplessly accept that our fragile little lives are at the hands of a tangible god that could kill us in the process of saving us?
yet, in spite of everything, gamera still marches on. and goddamn is he a trooper. he'd be covered in deep lacerations, a gaping hole in his chest, and his arm dismembered and he still manages to get up when there's another threat incoming. its almost messianic in a sense-- an unspoken burden only understood by a handful of characters that we saw believe in him throughout the trilogy. he's not a perfect hero. he may be a force of nature in of itself. but, gamera is worth believing in, despite everything. because he's willing to die for us, even if we hate him.
a damned great finale to an excellent kaiju trilogy... dare i say on par with even godzilla vs destoroyah?
seeing the personal scale of everything was such an excellent directorial choice. in the earlier gamera films, while we did see glimpses of the kaiju conflicts affecting the common life of every day people, this one took it at a more ambiguous perspective. gamera, the guardian of the universe, resembling a nebulous force of nature destroying countless buildings in his path, with his conflicts towards the gyaos sending others flying from its explosions, with burnt up chunks of kaiju flesh descending from the sky and crushing the desperate citizens fleeing for their lives. we can't help but empathize for ayana for losing her parents because we saw what these kaiju are capable of firsthand. its easy to forget when every gamera film has had the larger scale fights be so distant from the camera as if to capture every single ounce of spectacle it has to offer, that we forget the true proportions it entails when compared to how tiny and fragile we are in the grand scheme of things.
rightfully, the people at hand should be pissed at gamera. that much is for certain. how much can we really rely on a 'guardian of the universe' to protect us? should this really be a preservation of the status quo? to helplessly accept that our fragile little lives are at the hands of a tangible god that could kill us in the process of saving us?
yet, in spite of everything, gamera still marches on. and goddamn is he a trooper. he'd be covered in deep lacerations, a gaping hole in his chest, and his arm dismembered and he still manages to get up when there's another threat incoming. its almost messianic in a sense-- an unspoken burden only understood by a handful of characters that we saw believe in him throughout the trilogy. he's not a perfect hero. he may be a force of nature in of itself. but, gamera is worth believing in, despite everything. because he's willing to die for us, even if we hate him.
