Emperor

There is a disconnect between what this movie is about and the movie they actually made. Based on real, historical events, Emperor follows the mad scramble by officers under General MacArthur who were given ten days to determine Emperor Hirohito’s culpability in the atrocities committed by Japanese forces during World War II and, by extension, if he should be tried for war crimes. This has the capacity to be an electrifying mixture of detective story, political thriller, and contemplation on the nature of war and its inhumanity, all propelled forward by the inherent tension of a looming deadline. Emperor doesn’t really deliver on that potential. Not that it doesn’t try, it just doesn’t make a tasty dish out of its very excellent ingredients.

Regardless of the filmmaker’s intentions, the premise as they present it in the movie is one that suggests a thrilling race against the clock, as MacArthur’s Japan expert Bonner Fellers, played by Matthew Fox, and his team try to search out and interview key Japanese officials in time to make an informed decision. Add to that the additional pressure that many officials won’t come out of hiding to speak with the Americans, fearing their own arrest, or are preparing to kill themselves to avoid dishonor, which will make questioning them quite… difficult. The material just lends itself to a certain kind of thriller.

The problem is that Emperor just isn’t that thrilling. The characters keep making us aware of the impending deadline by simply saying as much through dialogue, and by the barking tone with which lines are occasionally delivered, but very little in the construction of the movie makes you feel that pressure mounting. For example, in one scene where Fellers meets with MacArthur to discuss his progress, they talk at a dinner party held at a lavish estate and Fellers never so much as points out how this somewhat frivolous event is taking valuable time away from his mission.

The only other arrow in the movie’s quiver, besides the fairly unsubtle dialogue, is its attempt to paint surrendered Japan as a powder keg ready to blow, which does more to elevate the stakes of the work being done than the tension of the deadline. This is done with shots of the bombed streets of Tokyo through which Fellers travels and an elaborate side story about Fellers and his pre-war experiences in Japan, in particular an old Japanese girlfriend and her family.

This split structure, between the main story and this side story, has merit as it can serve a dual purpose when done right. Firstly, these flashbacks could serve to break up any overwhelming tension or overbearing dark thematic material. Secondly, these flashbacks also help contextualize the present with context from the past and eventually build to a somber confrontation with Fellers’ past that ultimately shape his recommendations for the future, both valuable narrative functions. The problem is that the tension is ineffectual and the darker themes are far from overbearing, so such a respite isn’t needed, while an unfortunately stiff performance from Fox makes it difficult to get us to care about his past life or how it shapes his present journey.

Emperor also lacks the right tone. Fox’s Fellers, as the lead man, carries a lot of the blame here. This should function more like an espionage story, where all manner of different avenues are tried to get the needed intel and subtly and subterfuge are used to get reluctant Japanese officials to see the value of the American side and, consequently, give over their secrets. The movie frequently alludes to Japanese traditions that are built around showing respect. Despite being an supposed expert on Japan, in the movie Fellers shows no deference to the Japanese he encounters, makes no attempt to win them over by conforming to their customs, nor demonstrates any understanding of the value in creating opportunities for high ranking Japanese to give him what he needs while saving face or preserving honor. Instead, he takes on everyone with as brash and straightforward a tack as possible. He interrogates people with all the subtlety of shouting at them to tell him what he wants to know. He is such a terrible stereotype of an American no nonsense straight shooter that it actually offended me someone, be it the British director or the American screenwriter, would think someone in Fellers’ position, with Fellers’ background, would act this way. Even ignoring the norms of Japanese culture, would anyone want to divulge their secrets to a guy who acted like that?

The one place the film does much better is as a docudrama. It still isn’t great, but most of the high marks I would give it are found here. Tommy Lee Jones embodies MacArthur. It doesn’t even matter that he still looks like Tommy Lee Jones and talks like Tommy Lee Jones, there is just something about his presence and gravitas that screams the larger than life figure he is portraying. When he is on screen with the signature pipe in his mouth it is like an old newspaper photograph come to life. Similarly, despite the many failings of the movie up until this point, the ending just works. I think the grand importance of the moment in history being put on film is self-evident, so the film’s weaker build up to it doesn’t hinder its impact cinematically. As unearned as it may be, I found myself emotionally moved by the moment in which Emperor Hirohito and General MacArthur meet for the first time in the film’s waning moments. However, these small highs don’t outweigh some equally strange or ill conceived methods of telling a historical story.

Some may find this a minor thing, but one aspect of the movie, beyond Fox’s stiff acting and the wasted potential of its quasi-thriller premise, that annoyed me was how the film uses voice over. The idea of a voice over itself isn’t the worst, but here it is implied through the film’s visuals that these words are coming from something Fellers is writing. It is never clear what that thing is. This voice over contains intimate life details that would be more appropriate for a diary than an official army report, but also the kinds of facts, figures, and policy recommendations that would be unlikely to be written anywhere but an official army report. It doesn’t help that this voice over is clearly a tool for shortcutting exposition and betrays an inability or unwillingness to show, rather than tell, parts of the story. Voice over is fine when it represents a character’s inner monologue, mirroring a book’s ability to lay bare a character’s inner thoughts and feelings, but here it is just a lazy way to impart information.

The failings of Emperor are numerous. It lacks a compelling lead. It leans on the crutch of voice over for its exposition. It’s actually fairly boring and overlong, with weak pacing, juggling two time periods with equally uninteresting storytelling. It offers some historical thrills but staggeringly few narrative ones, squandering a premise with tons of potential. Tommy Lee Jones’ gravitas-laden performance as General Douglas MacArthur is not enough to save the movie, especially when it is featured in such a small portion of the film.

Would Recommend: If you are totally fascinated by, or enamored with, all things Pacific Theater.

Would Not Recommend: If you are expecting to be glued to your seat by a gripping true story from world history.