«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.
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From an interview with Alexander Sokurov
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