Matango (1963)

directed by Ishirō Honda

Japan

89 minutes

4 stars out of 5

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I decided it was high time I gave this one a second look, because the first time I saw it, although I knew what people were telling me the film's message was, I don't think I quite got it or that it sunk in enough for me to fully appreciate it. A large part of that is probably down to me not having seen Gojira 1954 yet, or anything else Ishirō Honda had done for that matter, and maybe having some inherent prejudices against the idea that a "monster movie" could ever contain social commentary.

Tacking on "Attack of the Mushroom People" as an alternate title for this film's international release does it such a huge disservice that I'm reluctant to even mention it. Yes, there are technically mushroom people in the movie, but I hesitate to call what they do "attacking". Semantics aside, hearing that title out of context automatically paints a certain picture: You expect something cheesy, mushroom people? How can that be serious? But to go back to the semantics for a minute, I think the line between "mushroom" and "person" is a big point in the film itself, and for the alternate title to stick a moniker on the transformed, half-organic humans and try to pull in audiences with the promise of some freakish creatures is inconsiderate and ruins the film's image for anyone unfamiliar with it.

Rant over. So what am I talking about here? I'm talking about a movie absolutely rife with the existential dread of becoming aware of your place in a rapidly industrialized, sprawling city; becoming aware that some part of yourself is dying or being killed every time you wake up and participate in the city's existence. Becoming aware of the incompatibility of the human soul with its surroundings.

Our main cast of characters is a group of people, not really friends, aboard a small recreational boat that hits rough waters and ends up on a mysterious, uninhabited island. Nobody in this is particularly likable, with Akira Kubo being the slight exception, and Miki Yashiro playing the one girl who you sympathize with the most because she doesn't even want to be there. Even the people who don't constantly squabble and try to shove everybody else out of the way in the name of self-preservation never do much speaking up - this isn't a "good guy takes the helm and steers everybody back on the path or righteousness" type of thing. Personal virtue or morals doesn't really matter on the island. Your presence alone is enough to have the island start trying to snake its tentacles into you, enough to corrupt you, no matter who you were before arriving. Actually, I should put that another way: The island only amplifies whatever you were before arriving.

Before long the "crew" start to find things on and about the island that are unsettling: Evidence that people had been there before, but no bodies or anything to tell the story of what happened to them. Man-made objects on the island, like the derelict boat, appear to be completely coated in some kind of mold or fungus spores. There's a diary that's found with entries about how the mushrooms growing rampant on the island are poisonous, but nobody seems to take it very seriously, especially when the food starts running out. Six people eat up the small resources they can scrounge pretty quickly, and before too long they start turning to those mushrooms, despite all warnings. Nigh on everything about this movie can be taken metaphorically, and the rapid consumption and personal hoarding of the scant supply of canned foods on the abandoned boat that eventually leads to the crew plundering the island's natural resources is a pretty clear reference to humans stripping the land of everything we can make money from or consume before turning to whatever other uncorrupted, untouched wilds we can get our hands on.

The atmosphere in this is so heavy. You really feel the fungal dampness, the rich moist decay. Even though a lot of the runtime takes place inside the derelict boat (itself rotting and decaying) it almost feels like the characters have no refuge, that the island takes over everything. There's something deeply sinister going on at all times during Matango even though - and this is one of the points that turned me off the first time I watched it - it can occasionally drag a bit, preoccupied with personal issues and petty arguments. But the island is not, I would argue, a malevolent force. Nor is it benevolent for that matter: The island just exists, and it's the nature of the people who venture into its wilderness that results in their being subsumed by it. As with Godzilla, it is just a force of nature. Its appearance reflects back on us, not on it.

If this bored you or you got tired of seeing people be cruel to one another and not work together, the final fifteen minutes should at least leave an impression on you. It's one of the most genuinely chilling and discomfiting things I've seen on film in recent memory - the surreal, nightmarish forest of swelling mushrooms and things that used to be people, enticing us to just eat of their flesh, just do that one thing and you can be so happy. If the meaning of this wasn't clear enough, the expression of pure bliss as one of the crewmates eats his first mushroom and flashes back to everything about Tokyo that gave him pleasure before - the bright lights, the dancing women - should reinforce it. There's no difference between becoming a mushroom and becoming a member of the weird collective being that is a megalopolis. As soon as you've tasted how delightful it can be, you are now of it. The horror of Matango is not about turning into a mushroom, it's about becoming consumed, not realizing until it's too late that you've lost all sense of humanity. There's no way to fight it and the only way to stay alive is to conform. I don't mean to evangelize, but please watch a subtitled version instead of a dub if you can find it. It's crucial that your viewing of this is as close to how it was originally intended to be as possible.