Gamera vs. Jiger (1970)

directed by Noriaki Yuasa

Japan

83 minutes

3.5 stars out of 5

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The Showa Gamera movies, to me, have felt futuristic in a way that's different from what I'm used to in the Showa Godzilla films. It feels more appropriate to say that they feel future-leaning, that they're hoping to act as a showcase - much like Expo '70, during which much of this movie takes place - for the way things could be in the future. Godzilla movies that are set in the future take a more matter-of-fact approach, dropping us in a time where any kind of wacky technology can be explained away as "it's the future, duh". Gamera thus far seems to like to usher us in gently to an even spacier space age. A time when leaps and bounds in technology have already been made, sure, but where the most wonderful and hopeful of new inventions are still yet to come, thanks to the secondary stars of the show - the children.

I'm gonna be honest here, most of the reason why I'm reviewing this at all is so I have a chance to talk about the Jiger suit. The movie itself is pretty good, but I am so in love with that suit that it eclipses everything else. The first thing one notices if one has seen many monster movies before is that Jiger is walking on all fours, not on her hands and knees the way the majority of quadrupedal kaiju do. This is a tremendously difficult position to achieve, which is why it's so notable to me when I see it. I think the best and one of the only examples I can think of is Rie Ota as the GMK Baragon, achieving that stance through an impressive combination of extensions inside the suit and presumably just being buff as hell. It's not at all easy to walk like that inside a suit, much less with that incredibly massive head that Jiger has. I was also enamored with her because of the way, in her first appearance, when she trundles along to take a drink from an in-comparison-pea-sized lake, the footage is reversed so that it looks like water spilling from her mouth is actually being sucked up. This is a small detail, and pretty easy to do, but it shows that the crew were paying attention to those tiny things. Even Gamera looks lumpen and monochrome compared to how much detail is in Jiger.

These movies are also incredibly violent even compared to what I'm used to with Godzilla. Gamera is constantly gushing blood, getting stabbed, having bits torn off it, and in turn tearing chunks out of other kaiju - those tusks ain't just for show. I like this surprisingly physical side of kaiju cinema, but it is jarring how much monster meat is in these movies. It makes sense, though. Kids love seeing stuff get ripped up, even if their parents don't love them seeing that.

In general, watching tokusatsu in Blu-Ray quality is a vastly different experience to watching it in even slightly poorer resolution, because you can instantly tell where everything is a set. Some things you do just have to laugh at - for example this movie features some of the worst green-screen fake driving scenes ever - but most of the time, I'm not laughing, even if everything looks obviously fake and miniature, I'm just admiring the level of work that went into it.

Unfortunately, like the first and second installments in this series and a huge amount of other toku besides, Jiger's origins are rooted in the idea of other cultures (specifically African cultures) as mystical and superstitious. As with the first movie, though, non-Africans are made to look pretty ignorant when they disregard native peoples trying desperately to warn them of some danger that gets dismissed as an uncivilized people being scared of myths and legends. So that's something. But I still don't like the way Africa as a whole is shorthand for weird stuff that no one understands. At least they do have an actual black person in this one, though, not just somebody in blackface. And I do enjoy the made-up "Wester Island" - this is its real name within the film, not the subtitles having a go.

Anyway, this movie gets absolutely wild in terms of just, like, what has to happen for the story to progress. It's like someone was sitting there thinking "How can I get Gamera into the weirdest trouble I can imagine?" For starters, this is, canonically, the one where Gamera gets pregnant, thanks to Jiger's ovipositor (is it ridiculous to imagine a mammal having an ovipositor? Yes! Is it still cool as hell and a fun example of speculative biology? Very yes!). This gives Gamera cancer (?) and makes it become anemic, parts of its skin turning translucent as it returns to water to recuperate. The only option to fix all of this, of course, is to send a submarine into Gamera's internals and physically cut out the parasitic Jiger larvae. The submarine must, obviously, be piloted by children, because kids in these movies really gotta do everything themselves.

While I don't advocate for letting children do dangerous things, such as roam around the inside of a huge turtle with jet propulsion, I do wholeheartedly advocate for just letting children believe they're capable. For so many children, all they hear all day is "You can't do that, you're just a child". While for many things that's true, and while it usually comes from a place of wanting to protect them from danger, it can wear on a child and when taken too far it can really make them feel like second-class citizens, useless and without appreciable skills. A lot of society seems to think a child's job is just to sit there and grow up. Not Gamera! The thing I love about these movies is that they acknowledge children as a vital part of society, and that us adults need the perspective of children, unclouded and unconventional, to solve the problems that we may be too stuck in our ways to puzzle out. Gamera is for the kids, and that's why I love it.