The Sun depicts several days in the life of Japanese Emperor Hirohito before and after Japan’s capitulation during WWII. The films follows him in his everyday activities, basically waiting for the Americans in order to surrender. When they come, Hirohito has to take his leave of his divine status.

In the years following the acclaimed Russian Ark, Aleksandr Sokurov went back to completing his tetralogy of power, a series of ecstatically warped portraits of leaders. The Sun, about Emperor Hirohito, conveys history-as-nightmare: another masterpiece from Russia’s greatest living director.