The Sun

2005 Drama

The events surrounding Japanese emperor Hirohito's August 1945 call for a complete cease fire among his troops serves as the subject of Alexander Sokurov's thought-provoking historical drama. In the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Emperor Hirohito (Issey Ogata) announces to the world that Japan will surrender unconditionally. His declaration was broadcast over the radio on August 15, 1945, and stunned the Japanese people. In this film, Sokurov details not only the events surrounding the emperor's declaration of surrender, but his renunciation of divine status as well.

Director: Aleksandr Sokurov

Starring: Issei Ogata, Robert Dawson, Kaori Momoi, Shirô Sano, Shinmei Tsuji

 21 Reviews  4 Awards

Reviews

  • The Sun sheds only so much literal light on its chosen subject; it's a film of shadows and silence, the calm before and after the storm. But everything you see and hear carries weight and an eerie poetic undercurrent.

    Michael Phillips - The Chicago Tribune

    27 May 2013

  • Sokurov, who also acted as director of photography, films the character and his surroundings with the eye of a newly arrived visitor to another world.

    Keith Uhlich - Time Out New York

    27 May 2013

  • This 2005 masterpiece by Russian filmmaker Alexander Sokurov transforms the story of Emperor Hirohito at the close of World War II into a melancholy meditation on power and its loss.

    Fred Camper - Chicago Reader

    27 May 2013

  • The movie is best understood not in banal docudrama terms but as an impressionistic portrait of a man who, stripped of power, is revealed as grotesquely human.

    Manohla Dargis - The New York Times

    27 May 2013

  • Though he successfully humanizes Hirohito, who is shown happily shedding his divinity, Sokurov doesn't entirely exonerate him. He contrives a shock ending that, as measured as everything else in this engrossing, supremely assured movie, acknowledges one last blood sacrifice on the emperor's altar.

    J. Hoberman - Village Voice

    27 May 2013

Awards

  • Aleksandr Sokurov

    Berlin International Film Festival (2005)

     

  • Best Foreign Director (Regista del Miglior Film Straniero)

    Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists (2006)

     

  • Best Film

    Russian Guild of Film Critics (2005)

  • Best Film

    Yerevan International Film Festival (2005)

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