Godzilla Fantasia (1984)
aka Gojira Fantaji: SF Kokyo Fantaji
Article 5842 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-7-2020
Directed by various
No listed cast
Country: Japan
What it is: Long music video

If there’d been a plot, I’d have summarized it here.

For those who don’t recognize this particular title from the Godzilla series, here’s a bit of explanation. At one point, composer Akira Ifukube composed a three-movement symphony based on the scores he wrote for several Toho fantasy films, many (but not all) of which featured Godzilla. This movie consists of a performance of that symphony together with the movie scenes for which the music was originally written. There are apparently several versions of this movie with two sections available. One is a performance of a synthesizer version of the symphony with other scenes from the movies, and a third consisted of scenes from movies later than 1984. My copy features the original symphony and the synthesizer version, but not the third sequence (which must necessarily postdate the 1984 year listed here). The original symphonic version is easily the best of these; plus, at about forty minutes, it finishes up before the whole thing gets tiresome. The synthesizer version feels redundant, and occasionally features noise and talking from the footage it shows; it even uses some of the same footage as the symphonic version at one point. There’s at least one scene that appears to be from some historical movie I can’t identify. If you’re keen on Ifukube’s scores, this can be a fun movie; for Godzilla fans, it’s optional; after all, you won’t be seeing any Godzilla footage you probably haven’t seen before.