| Toshio Masuda and Yoshimitsu
Banno's controversial movie based on the prophecies
of the late Michel de Nostradame, or Nostradamus,
and how he foretold the end of the world in
1999. Prophecies of Nostradamus is,
at heart, a disaster film. One which presents
an onslaught of pollution related catastrophes
which strike, and devastate, the world and
its population. The film is very overzealous
in its pollution message, though. So much
so, in fact, that it makes Godzilla
vs. Hedorah (1971) look reserved in
comparison. Yet somehow the creative staff
behind the movie have managed to craft a very
memorable, if not haunting at times, flick
that stands alongside some of the best disaster
films that Toho has been involved with, including
Shiro Moritani's Submersion
of Japan (1973) and Kinji
Fukasaku's
Virus (1980). Of course Prophecies
of Nostradamus is a far cry from what
could be called "great" cinema none
the same, with a story that tends to lose
itself at times and while the acting is decent
the characters just aren't interesting enough
to care about them. However, on the flip side,
special effect work by Teruyoshi Nakano is
exceptional and Isao
Tomita's score is one of the most memorable
of any Toho film.
In terms of overall plot, the movie
starts out in feudal Japan in 1835, with a descendent
of Ryougen Nishiyama being persecuted for bringing
the word of Nostradamus to Eastern shores. Fast-forward
to a more modern Japan as a different descendent
of Nishiyama explains the prophecies of Nostradamus
during an interrogation. Then comes the year 1999,
the year that Nostradamus prophesized the end
of the world, as scientist Ryougen Nishiyama is
trying, unsuccessfully, to reduce the arms race
around the world and the emissions of factories.
His daughter, Mariko, is currently dating Akira
Nakagawa, a photographer who has returned to Japan
after experiencing the horrible starvation sweeping
Africa. After a series of meetings to discuss
the current global disasters, an expedition is
sent by the UN to New Guinea to investigate an
"atomic dust cloud" that has appeared there. However,
the expedition goes missing, and another is dispatched
with Ryougen and Akira as two of the members.
Upon arrival, this second expedition is attacked
by giant bats, mutant leeches and radiated locals
who have resorted to cannibalism, and start to
devour one of the UN's members who was bitten
by one of the leeches. After fighting off the
New Guinea inhabitants with gunfire, the expedition
stumbles on a cave where the bones of the previous
expedition members litter the floor, along with
three, hardly alive, members of the party who
are suffering from the effects of radiation. The
three surviving members are killed, as to be put
out of their misery.
Meanwhile,
a SST jet explodes in the sky over Japan, which
causes flesh wounds on those exposed to the blinding
flash from the overhead explosion and eventually
tears a hole in the Ozone layer, causing extreme
heat which horribly burns those exposed. Unfortunately,
another SST jet explodes in the Artic, and immense
heat melts the ice which causes violent storms
that start to flood Japan. Back at the Nishiyama
household, Nobuo, wife of Ryougen, has contacted
a fatal disease in her respiratory organs that
is becoming widespread throughout the country.
It's also discovered that her daughter, Mariko,
is pregnant. In the meantime, food has become
scarce throughout Japan, forcing the Japanese
government to ration out supplies. The people,
untrusting of the government, lash out at the
police force intended to keep them inline and
break into the ration warehouses, ransacking the
food inside. Ryougen returns to his household
just in time to see his wife pass on. Ryougen
then speaks at a government meeting where he sounds
off scenarios of how Japan could meet its doom,
either from country wide volcanic eruptions or
World War III. The Prime Minister then addresses
the crowd, on how humanity must learn to deal
with this crisis as only they can save themselves.
The movie ends, then, with the three protagonists
walking down a deserted street in front of the
Diet Building.
A general synopsis of the story,
with a lot of missing side plots, like the
overgrown vegetation in the subways and the
mass teen suicides. The narrative in the film
basically dies after the New Guinea expedition
anyway, with an overwhelming amount of announcements
being relayed from news organizations about
one disaster after another, which are then
followed up by lengthy segments showing each
particular disaster. These segments quickly
overshadow the troubles of the Nishiyama family
members, and most of them could easily be
removed from the film without any lapse of
continuity. Reflective clouds in the sky?
Well they are gone as soon as the scene changes.
Tidal waves sweeping through Japan? Never
mentioned, neither is their effect shown after
they hit Japan. These disasters are, or should
be, literally tearing the world apart; however,
none of them have lasting effects in the film.
The movie also loses itself in pursuit of
an overzealous anti-pollution message, which
dilutes the point of the film as the disasters
are so over the top they can't be taken seriously.
This isn't to say that the film doesn't have
its share of eerie moments, though. The foremost
being the New Guinea cannibals devouring a
member of the expedition, but this shouldn't
overshadow other segments like dead birds
falling out of the sky in masses, or the transition
from the lush New Guinea jungle to the wilting
yellow colored vegetation under the "atomic
dust cloud". All in all, the film suffers
a little from being anti-climatic, as it never
quite lives up to the very moody New Guinea
trip, nor does it recreate the same feeling
of impending doom that is emanated from that
surrounding. On a side note, these segments
are actually better in the dubbed version
when compared to the original Japanese release,
as these scenes are spoken entirely in English
and the Japanese voice work is largely inferior
here to what is present in other versions
of the film.
Speaking of the acting, it's really
a mixed bag. Tetsuro Tamba, as Ryougen Nishiyama,
gives an extraordinary performance as the eccentric
scientist who has burdened himself with notifying
the rest of the world that doomsday is upon them.
The tear filled scene where he confronts his dying
wife is particularly powerful as Tamba's performance
greatly overshadows all the others in the film.
In general, he pulls off the large range of emotions
that his character is supposed to be feeling in
a very believable fashion, even if the circumstances
might not be. Kaoru
Yumi, an actress who is almost notorious for
exposing her breasts in her film roles, portrays
Ryougen's daughter, Mariko Nishiyama. Yumi, unfortunately,
isn't given a lot to do in the film, merely acting
as a link between Akira and Ryougen and to address
what might be the problems surrounding raising
a child in this doomsday like scenario. She is
given one long dance sequence, in the sand amongst
a sun background, but this scene is cheapened
as the actress is obviously jumping on a trampoline
during most of this segment. Rounding out the
three protagonists is Toshio
Kurosawa, playing photographer Akira Nakagawa.
Kurosawa gives a pretty straight faced performance
here. He looks the part, but doesn't really appear
to be putting effort into his role. Judging from
Kurosawa's other work, most notably Lady
Snowblood (1973), the actor definitely
has the talent, which either means poor direction
or his heart just wasn't into Prophecies of
Nostradamus.
The characters found in the film
are generally pretty underdeveloped too, with
the exception of Ryougen. Nobuo Nashiyama, on
the other hand, is an interesting character at
least, as she meets death head on. Played by Yoko
Tsukasa, Nobuo has a minor role in the film, but
works well to slowly build the pace of the impending
hell which is about to be released on film, early
in the movie. Unfortunately, these early segments
were removed from edits of the film, as other
versions cut right into the start of the global
disasters instead of building up to it. The prime
minister, played by So Yamamura, has another nice
role as his is willing to listen to Ryougen, despite
the fact that he makes no changes to his policy
until things are too far-gone. His heart filled
speech about humanity banning together to overcome
this challenge is particularly well done and presents
a nice way to end the film.
The special effects work, done
by mastermind Nakano, is outstanding in this film,
though. Everything from credible giant slugs to
a seemingly never ending amount of explosions,
Nakano really outdoes himself. He did so well,
in fact, that he later used the scene involving
a highway full of exploding cars in several of
his other films, including The
War in Space (1977) and The
Return of Godzilla (1984). The subway
vegetation is presented very well too, but it's
a shame the sequence is so short and insignificant.
Prophecies of Nostradamus does have its
share of special effects related blemishes though,
the foremost being the use of stock footage (a
Nakano tradition). This film, like The
Return of Godzilla (1984), was allocated
a generous budget from Tomoyuki
Tanaka, hoping to cash in on the success of
Submersion
of Japan (1973) with another disaster
film. So Nakano's use of stock footage is likely
done so by choice here, as opposed to limitations
created by the film's budget. The massive amount
of stock news footage seen in the film, depicting
starvation in Africa and floods in the United
States among other events, seems like a cop-out
in terms of movie production; however, it does
give the film a very eerie realism to it, so Nakano
can't be blamed for that, although this was likely
a conscious choice on the part of other members
of the staff anyway.
The film's score, done by Tomita,
is arguably one of the best soundtracks to be
attached to a Toho film. His main title, accompanied
by black and white stills of recent (i.e. 1960's
and 1970's) history, is particularly chilling;
one of the greatest cues from any Toho film. In
fact, it could be argued that Tomita's synthesizer
heavy score actually works better as a stand alone
experience, instead of as part of the film. His
sorrowful cue related to the death of Nobuo is
another great piece of work by Tomita, and his
very contemporary cues for New Guinea are a refreshing
listen as well.
Prophecies of Nostradamus
is, without a doubt, most famous for the self
imposed ban placed on the film by Toho though.
As, only a week after the film's release, controversy
regarding Prophecies of Nostradamus began
to mount. A member of the "No Nukes" filed a complaint
to the Eirin Board, a organization in charge of
censoring films in Japan, that the scenes involving
the mutants in New Guinea and the mutants after
the nuclear war were offensive toward survivors
of a nuclear explosion. Toho rushed to address
this complaint by requesting projectionists to
manually remove almost 2 minutes of "offensive"
footage from the film, and supposedly dubbed in
the line: "Don't shoot! They are human beings!
Don't shoot!" proclaimed by Ryougen, as he is
being attacked by the New Guinea mutants, to new
prints of the film. To further appease the Eirin
Board, who ruled that the scenes were offensive,
Toho pulled the film, edited it down to 90 minutes,
and re-released this print to finish out the movie's
theatrical run. Yet another 90 minute version
of the film was created, with the "offensive scenes",
when Toho made their International version of
the film, which cuts out a lot of the plot before
the disasters start to hit in Prophecies of
Nostradamus. In the 1980's, UPA made yet another
edit of the film as they cut the movie down to
a running time of only 72 minutes, while also
adding in their own version of the film's opening.
It's this 72 minute edit, dubbed The Last Days
of Planet Earth, which is unfortunately the
only version of the film to make it to a home
video release, as Toho has banned the film in
Japan. An uncut, 114 minute, presentation of the
film was shown on TV in Japan in 1980, though,
but this was the last time this version would
ever be shown.
Overall, Prophecies of Nostradamus
is likely one of the strangest Toho films yet
conceived. It's not great cinema, but its peculiarity
is enough to make the film worth watching, if
not for the excellent special effects work by
Nakano and Tomita's soundtrack. The movie does
have a strange allure to it that makes the viewer
come back for more though, perhaps because of
the rather morbid subject matter. In fact, it's
not uncommon for one to dislike the movie on their
first viewing, yet, somehow, keeping coming back
to it as a slow affection for the production builds
overtime. So, in a sense, the staff behind the
feature definitely did something right, even if
it's hard to address the movie's eventual pull
on the audience in words.
|
(3/5)