Happy New Year!
Now that we have passed Blade Runner in the timeline, I will greet 2020 with my first Jimmy’s Notes of the decade. This one is on Nathan’s mini-analysis of 1955’s Half Human. Admittedly, these bullet points are all from his independent study on director Ishiro Honda back in his grad school days. They are more akin to an actual review of the film. I do not have much to add for this one.
Nathan’s Notes on Half Human
- Begins like a film noir in an alleyway in the rain
- Ashes in a box. Cremation. Foreshadowing.
- New Year’s holiday (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_New_Year); told in two flashbacks. First by youth and then by professor. It’s weird.
- Masaru Sato’s score is quite good. Perhaps better than Godzilla Raids Again. It switches between whimsical and foreboding.
- The skiing sequence does feel like padding.
- Filmed on location, and it shows. The scenery is beautiful.
- “Burning Hell Valley freezes over.” (A joke from my brother Jarod)
- The clock in an early scene looks like Mom and Dad’s cuckoo clock back home.
- The phone call with the gunshots and screams is eerie.
- Footprints. Echoes the real-life events around “discovery” of abominable snowman at the time.
- It is strange that the Snowman murders everyone in the cabin (it seems) but is kind later. The scene seems to point to him (fur, bent bar). Unless it was the tribe and he was just present?
- “Wait for the spring thaw.” As in find the body of Takeno.
- Akira Takarada and Momoko Kochi, the star-crossed lovers of Godzilla, appear in this film together as a couple.
- Takarada tells Kochi, “You have to be strong,” because of her brother’s death.
- Snowman’s roar is a bit unnerving. Like an elephant.
- Oba Incorporated: biggest animal dealer in Japan. Villains. They get more over-the-top as the film progresses.
- The Snowman appears about 39 minutes in. His face is a combination of a mask and make-up. The costume is covered in goat fur. Even appears to be balding.
- Is the Snowman smitten with Kochi? I don’t know. Possibly. He is lonely. The last of his kind. Adam Noyes proposes that the Snowman, in his rage, takes Kochi because she’s important to everyone like his son was to him. Planned to kill her in front of everyone.
- 50 minutes in we learn that the Snowman has a son (Snowboy?). Is he his biological son? Adam Noyes theorizes he’s adopted.
- Peter H. Brothers argues that Chika clings to a knife, a phallic symbol.
- The scene of Takarada dangling from the cliff has a great matte painting. It’s an homage to King Kong when the Snowman pulls him up. The birds do look a little fake, though. The Snowman shocks Takarada by helping him. Unexpected and atypical.
- Chika is the best character in the film (aside from the Snowman). She’s multidimensional, and the actress gives a great performance. She’s curious but fearful.
- The Snowboy sounds like a screeching monkey.
- Chika reveals Snowman’s location after Oba gives her a ring. Throws rock to mark location of his cave. I thought she was throwing the ring away. She is essentially cursed by the elder when he’s shot for doing this.
- Snowboy saves Snowman from truck.
- These villains are cartoonish. “I’ll teach you to balance a ball!” Are they evil because they like French girls?
- The dummy thrown over the cliff looks terrible.
- Like Godzilla (and Kong), the Snowman is tragic and sympathetic monster.
- Chika tries to save the abusive elder when the Snowman destroys the village (like Kong does), but he says not to. Nuance?
- Chika blames herself for what happened even though she was deceived by Oba.
- Shinsuke is told to be strong when he cries over his dead brother.
- Snowman’s kind died from eating poison mushrooms (Matango? :P) How could they? Animals are good about realizing something is poisonous. Bad science.
- The Snowman is lonely because he’s the last of his kind. Chika is lonely because her tribe is isolated and savage. Kinship.
- The one stop-motion shot of Snowman climbing is awkward.
- Chika confronts the Snowman to save Kochi as redemption. Dies with the Snowman.
- Tragic ending like Godzilla. Monster and hero(ine) both die.
- Tacked on “happy” ending to soften tragedy.
There you have it.
Come back next week when Nathan is joined by Ben Avery to discuss the 1976 remake of King Kong!