Sci-Fi Film Fiesta, The Swingin' 60s - The Complete Book by Chris Christopoulos - HTML preview

“There is no one here who can see. There is no one

left. There's nothing”

Lighthouse

Back at the lighthouse, Tom is alerted by Karen to the presence of “one of those plants growing out there….on the ledge by The Cove.” Tom leaps into action and fashions a harpoon to use as a weapon against the triffid intruder. With he and his wife in peril and realising that one cannot be completely isolated from the world and the fate of humanity, his words stand as a lame mockery when he suggests that “there's no sense in getting killed by a plant” and that he had “picked a much pleasant way to die.” When faced with such danger, life can be given added meaning and purpose especially when there is something and someone to live and fight for. And so, with his wife insisting on accompanying him, the Goodwin’s exit the lighthouse to face whatever danger that awaits them together.

While Tom and Karen search unsuccessfully for the triffid, they are unaware thast the plant has surreptitiously entered the lighthouse in their absence. Does this suggest a degree of intelligence on the part of the triffid by undertaking a tactic both of diversion and ambush?

When the Goodwin’s return to the lighthouse, they soon discover within the presence of the triffid behind them. Tom quickly proceeds to engage in a desperate battle with the hostile plant, while Karen screams an awful lot and engages in a succession of terror-stricken facial expressions. Tom valiantly manages to vanquish the creature before comforting his distraught wife.

The momentarry feeling of relief, however is soon replaced by a final radio broadcast from across the Channel declaring “because of worldwide disruption it is impossible for delegates to gather.” Furthermore, the city of Paris, “with its millions of helpless inhabitants has become dangerous.” The broadcast ends on a very solemn and despondent note admitting that “there is no one here who can see…..there is no one left…..there's nothing…..”

“Faith is fine Mr Durant, but we'll need a lot more than that if we're

going to to survive”

 

France: Paris & Château

After the horrifying plane crash, Bill and Susan across the channel in a small launch and commandeer a car in Paris. The once bustling city is now a lifeless and morose empty shell of silence. Amid a downpour of rain, Bill and Susan are lost with only a road map to guide them. Suddenly, they encounter a couple of women out in the open who have been expecting someone else. One of the women is Christine Durant who can obviously see. Bill and Susan drive the pair back to their Château .

In the courtyard of the Château Masen and the others are met by Mr Coker who can also see as can his sister, Miss Coker. Christine's Chateau has been converted to into a hostel for about forty blind survivors. She and The Cokers met when they had an automobile accident. Being under sedation, they did not witness the meteor light display with the “tragic irony” being that “the sick stayed well and the healthy became blind.”

Susan is led upstairs by Miss Coker to the women’s sleeping quarters where she is introduced to one of the blind girls, Betina. Betina tries rather unsuccessfully to work out Susan’s physical appearance by means of her sense of touch. Susan diplomatically agrees with her assessments. Betina concludes her examination by optimistically pronouncing that they are “going to be good friends until things get back to normal.” This shows that she’s a good judge of a person’s character and personal qualities which is not so dependent on the sense of sight as is determining a person’s physical characteristics. It also shows how important optimism and hope are when faced with dire circumstances, no matter how unrealistic it might prove to be.

Speaking of optimism, Bill is not ay all optimistic about their chances while remaining at the Chateau and instead suggests that they make their way to Spain. Judging by what he has witnessed thus far, “things are never going back to normal.” He disagrees with Christine when she suggests her preference for relying on faith. For Masen survival is what counts and that will require making hard-nosed rational decisions especially considering “in France alone there's over 50 million people, almost every one of them blind.” Consequently, “there's going to be starvation, fire, pestilence” and that “anyone caught in the middle of it doesn't stand a chance.”

The moral and ethical dilemma is raised when the question is posed as to how to get all the people at the Chateau to Spain. Masen’s simple answer is that they couldn’t. For Christine that would be tantamount to just running away to which Masen replies that she is closing her eyes and refusing to see the situation for what it is. It is all to easy to say who is right and who is wrong and what one would do in such a situation, but when one is forced into that situation, who can tell what is the right thing to do? Nothing is that simple.

Later on, faith and optimism are put the test when it appears that the lights are once again on and the electricity is working. Sacré Bleu! Don’t tell me “France is back to normal!” With such hope rising, an attempt is made to contact the outside world with the phone. Ah, but hope is dashed when Masen enters and informs the others that he has just put some fuel in the auxiliary motor for the generator and as long as it lasts they’ll have light. As for the phone…...

 

“I assure you it's not for the greater glory of science. I just want us to

survive”

Lighthouse

Within the lighthouse, Tom and Karen work on dissecting and studying the dead triffid. Karen is pleased to see him working again but Tom assures her that he just wants them both to survive, and that if they can work out how the triffid functions, they might discover a more practical way of killing it. Once again, there is probably a lot more of significance lying behind his words and bluster than he is willing to admit.. He now has purpose and a goal and it is surprising how much meaning that can give to a mans life.

Karen convinces her husband to get some sleep if only for an hour. During that time, the apparently inert dead triffid specimen begins to move on the dissecting table. While Tom and Karen slumber, the triffid gradually reconstitutes itself and then slowly and stealthily makes its way upstairs to where their bedroom is located. Karen is suddenly awakened by a crashing sound below and goes to investigate. When she spots the source of the sound ascending the stairs, true to form she screams – Loudly! Not surprisingly, her scream scares the crap out of the triffid and it skedaddles the hell out of there. With the lab a complete mess and the lighthouse door smashed outwards, Tom deduces that the triffids “regenerate” and that “it's like like worms” when you “cut them in half and you can't kill them.” As Tom with sleeves rolled up high on his arms launches into action-man mode and repairs the door. Karen ominously observes, "It's like being nailed in your own coffin."

“Most plants thrive on animal waste, but I'm afraid this mutation

possesses an appetite for the animal”

 

While Masen refills the fuel tank on the generator, Bettina enters the utility room to talk to him about leaving for Spain. His earlier hard-edged uncompromising rationalism is somewhat diminished when he explains to her that the only way he can help is to try to find some “real help” and that he can't do it by staying put at the Chateau. He tells Betina that he’ll come back….if he can.

Later, Masen and Coker are in town foraging for supplies from the local store for the Chateau. Upon spotting a lone triffid, Masen puts a couple of rounds into it but with little effect. Both men then head in the direction the triffid went and discover a multitude of growing triffids along with spores blowing about in the air. Coker had seen a triffid in a greenhouse several years previously and it was known that it had come “to Earth in a meteorite” and that “this reappearance must have been caused by the meteorite explosion of the other night.” The chilling thought is raised as to “why should they attack people” when “most plants thrive on animal waste?” The horrible conclusion is that “this mutation possesses an appetite for the animal.” As for the spores? “This must be how they propagate” and with millions of them around, “one light wind and they're everywhere.”

As far as Masen is concerned the situation now makes it imperative to “pack up and leave” the Chateau before they are swarmed by triffids. Christine, however will not hear of leaving behind to die those she grew up with and who are her friends.

Everyone’s attention is soon drawn to the sound of a plane overhead and when they go outside to see, the plane begins to experience engine trouble and descends before crashing. Masen and Coker go to investigate the plane crash. Before the pilot dies, he reveals some information concerning Toulon and “the Naval Base being a rescue centre.” Masen knows of the French base in the Mediterranean near Marselle. Suddenly both men find themselves surrounded by triffids. As they flee, Coker injures his ankle and as he is carried by Masen in a fireman’s lift, he is sprayed by a triffid and dies.

Later Masen makes his way back to the Chateau on foot only to discover loud music being played and that escaped convicts have invaded the building. Upon finding Susan, she tells Masen that the convicts who can all see have taken all the females in there and “made them dance with them” and that they had “brought all kind of food and whisky.”

In this instance, a crisis has managed to bring out the worst in the worst kind of people. Within the confines of the Chateau, all sense of morality, human decency and order has broken down and is replaced by the satisfaction of personal lusts and desires. Within the Chateau faith and hope is abandoned and the law of the jungle reigns supreme in which the individual takes whatever they want and gives themselves over to e very kind of vice.

Bill takes Susan outside to a parked prison van then returns to the house to rescue Christine. As he accomplishes this, Bettina makes her way outside but is killed by the triffids who have begun to overrun the Chateau. In the end, Masen, Susan and Christine survive by fleeing in the prison van.

“You're alive and you wonder why”

Toulon

After driving all night, Masen, Christine and Susan arrive in Toulon the next day. To their dismay, all they they see before them is a scene of utter destruction. Their next destination is to be an American Naval Base near Cadiz.

During the drive the matter of ‘survivor’s guilt’ is raised in which Masen understands how Christine must be feeling knowing that she survived while the others perished. The inevitable question that eats at someone who finds themselves in such a situation is Why me? Why did I survive and the others didn’t? “Why me, why not someone better?”

Spain

The trio finally make it into Spain, albeit with just a horse and cart. While Masen and Christine are preparing a meal and experience feelings for each other beginning to surface, they unexpectedly hear music coming from outside. It is Susan who has found a ‘Toto Circo’ truck with a loudspeaker.

The discovery of the little clown truck raises another of those ethical questions that have be dealt with during times of crisis resulting in hard lessons that need to be learned along with tough decisions that have to be made, all in the interests of survival. If our trio is to make use of the truck, this will necessitate the abandonment of the horse. Not surprisingly, a mortified Susan will not hear of this. It may not be fair, but little is really fair in life and sometimes one just has to settle for what is best or right for everyone concerned. There is no sense in shielding Susan from such tough lessons if she is to survive in these changed conditions.

 

“There's an answer here in front of us, there has to be!”

Lighthouse

Tom and Karen are hard at work trying to discover something that will affect the triffid tissue but they find that “nothing, absolutely nothing seems to affect this tissue!” After all, the triffids “live, they grow, they take nourishment, they have sensory response, they absorb and spend energy.” Whatever they are made of, something must “interrupt their life cycle.”

Karen recalls the last radio call from Devonport and compares it to “listening to the end of the world.” Interestingly enough, her husband who previously been despondent and cynical retorts that it is not the end of the world and declares that there has to be an answer. Karen comes up with yet another less than cheery analogy for their predicament with the triffids outside the lighthouse staring in. She compares it to being like having “ guards outside a condemned cell.”

Casa de la Vega

(House of the Meadow)

Heading toward the American naval base in Cádiz, Masen, Christine and Susan are brought to a halt by roped off roadblock. Beyond they catch sight of a large, white villa toward which they begin walking. When they arrive they are met at the door by Luis de la Vega and his wife, Teresa de la Vega. Teresa is pregnant and is very close to giving birth. The couple are both blind, but Teresa had lost her sight years ago. She along with others who are visually impaired would probably fare better than most in this new world.

The others soon learn from Luis that the Naval Base had to be evacuated by submarine. He had heard on the radio that some submarines had been submerged during the night of the meteorites and that their entire crews had not been afflicted by blindness. Luis had trad to communicate with them but his transmitter wouldn’t function. While Christine and Susan begin to make preparations for the delivery of Teresa’s baby, Masen sets about the repair of the radio.

When the radio functions the following broadcast comes through:

“….Survivor pickup will be on Saturday at Alacante. We repeat our warning: vast

bands of triffids are roaming the area. Do not travel at night. Barricade all doors. We

repeat our warning. Do not travel at night. Barricade all doors. Final. Survivor

pickup will be on Saturday at Alacante……”

This means that the little group at the villa will have to leave the very next day in the morning.

“It's sound that attracts them”

That night, Masen sets about electrifying the villa’s fence while a short time time later at the other side of the fence a gathering of triffids have taken up position and appear intent on gaining access to their human quarry. Susan speculates that the plants might be able hear and are therefore attracted to sound. The switching off of the generator confirms this. Meanwhile, Teresa has given birth to a baby boy. However, any feeling of initial hope and joy is short-lived when, with the villa surrounded by a mass of triffids, the electric fence proves not to be effective due to weak electrical current. When triffids begin their concerted attack, Masen, during a moment of inspiration, believes that fire might just well prove to be effective. Consequently, he resorts to using a makeshift flamethrower made from a large hose attached to a small petrol tanker truck. The flame thrower ignites the triffids but there are just too many of them.

“This is the Gibralta rescue centre for the Mediterranean area. Our

pickup at Alacante has been made on schedule. This is the final rescue

operation for the present...”

Dash for Gibraltar

Amidst a pall of thick smoke, everyone except Masen has piled into the de la Vega’s car. It is planned that they’ll all meet up in Alacante near Gibraltar where a mass evacuation is to take place the next day. Meanwhile, Masen intends to use the little truck and its loudspeaker to attract the triffids. The plan is successful and Masen leaps out of the truck and makes his way to the rendezvous point. The rest of the party arrive at the Naval Base and board a submarine. Just before it is about to depart, Masen dives into the water and is picked up by a search party of sailors on a survival raft near to where Masen dove into the water.

“You hunt and you search and all the while the answer is right in front

of you."

Lighthouse

Just as Tom and Karen hear of the rescue at Gibraltar on the radio, the triffids begin to break into the lighthouse and pursue the Goodwins steadily up to the top floor, in a scene that is reminiscent of the alien chasing the crew of a spaceship to the top-most levels in the film,“It,The Terror From Beyond Space.” With few options left, Tom decides to use the fire hose to direct seawater at the Triffids. Masen had used fire in a similar move and now Tom is successfully employing sea water which acts like an acid on the Triffids - plants that grew from and then liberated themselves from the earth and set about propagating themselves by means of spores spread by the wind. As the triffids steam and dissolve, Tom observes, "Seawater. Two-thirds of the Earth is covered with it. You hunt and you search and all the while the answer is right in front of you."

In the end we come full circle with the realization that “nature's scheme of things” can be seen to be at work if we choose to look carefully. In this instance, a simple method had been found to destroy the triffids in the form of sea water “from which life on Earth had sprung” and had “became the means of preserving life on Earth.” The idea of having faith in something greater than ourselves even during times of peril is reinforced by the idea that mankind has reason to give thanks for having survived as does Masen, Christine, and Susan along with many of their fellow human beings who are seen ascending and entering into a cathedral.

 

Points of In Interest

Kieron Moore who played Tom Goodwin starred in other science fiction films like Satellite in the Sky (1956) and Crack in the World (1965).

Apparently filming had to be cut short as the producers ran out of money before they had the chance to film a lighthouse sequence where the character Tom hits upon the idea for killing the triffids.

Initially, the final film ran for only 60 minutes necessitating the inclusion of extra material. It has been alleged that there had been a reluctance or inability to spend the money for shooting major action and special effects sequences planned for Spain. There was also a requirement to spend most of the money in England to qualify for a government subsidy under the ‘Eady Plan.’

A new story line was devised which added thirty minutes of screen time but due to the potential expense involved did not involve the original cast. It was therefore decided to use two characters in an isolated setting - in the lighthouse.

Day of the Triffids was part of a double feature with Horrors of the Black Zoo and was not released in cinemas until May 1963.

The film contained some basic plot elements from John Wyndham's novel The Day of the Triffids, and should be a seen as being a somewhat loose adaptation. For instance, unlike in the novel where the triffids are experimental plants that are capable of movement and attack people, the triffids in the fil version arrive from a meteor shower. Also, some of the action is moved to France and Spain and nowhere does the character Josella Playton appear!

The idea of most of humanity being struck blind by the brilliant light show emitted from a spectacular shower of meteors is a very telling and effective one. Consider the panicked reaction of the passengers on the plane who discover that their pilot is blind, or indeed the passengers spilling out of the crashed train onto station platform. Then there are the scenes of eerily deserted cities with small clutches of people suddenly robbed of sight attempting to navigate once familiar streets with hands outstretched seeking desperately for those still able to see. The story forces us toi consider the power of imagination: what it might be liker being blind and and feeling vulnerable, helpless and fearful. The recent history of the Covid-19 pandemic has given us a taste of what this might be like.

Ours is a civilization based largely on the sense of sight or what can be perceived and understood visually. It is one of our greatest strengths which like the power of electricity or the connectivity of the internet, once we are deprived of it, civilization faces the danger of complete collapse. Why would an alien race bother truing to unproductively take pot shots at us in an attempt to invade and subdue us when it could simply devise a way to rob us of our greatest strengths which then ultimately become our greatest weakness?

Speaking of alien invasions, it has been too often assumed that the invaders would be grotesquely humanoid in appearance, technologically and intelligently superior to humans and would embark on such a course of action in order to supplant or dominate us for our planet and its resources. Instead in Day of the Triffids, we have monstrous mutated man-eating plant-based life forms whose growth has been initiated by the meteors entering the earth’s atmosphere. Extraterrestrial life as we imagine to be may not turn out to be what we will be confronted with.

By all means watch the skies

To see what up there flies

But to you I strongly advise

That you close fast your eyes!

**********

The 1951 Sci-Fi Story That Inspired The Classic Sci-Fi Film: "The Day Of The

Triffids”

 

Image generated by Chatgpt

Steve Sekely’s 1962 film version of Wyndham’s novel is perhaps the best known with other superior adaptations that followed with the 1981 and 2009 BBC TV mini-series. Each seems to approach the story from the standpoint of the prevalent concerns and preoccupations of the era in which they were made.

The 1962 film version seems to opt for a more sci-fi / horror angle at the expense of Wyndham’s story with its backdrop Cold War considerations and fears along with philosophical discussions of the nature of human civilisation.

John Wyndham’s classic science fiction story opens with a man called Bill waking up in a hospital room to find the world he once knew utterly transformed - a world gone blind overnight!

The opening chapter contains an atmosphere of dread as Bill senses without the aid of his sight that the outside world sounds more like a quiet Sunday rather than a typical Wednesday. There is an overwhelming feeling of something not at all being quite right.

With only his sense of hearing to guide him, the striking of the clock indicates that it is now nine o’clock. However, the time his bandages were supposed to be removed was at eight – what on earth has been happening in the meantime?

Unknown to Bill, while he had been asleep after his eye operation, a cosmic event caused the majority of the population who witnessed it to go blind.

Added to the horror of mass blindness is the danger posed to humanity in the form of a plant known as a triffid.

Humanity in its complacency, however did not count on a cosmic event causing global mass blindness and providing the triffids with an opportunity to escape their confinement and become THE apex predator with human beings becoming their prey. For the triffids you see, cannot see but are drawn to noise and therefore their prey cannot avoid them for long!

What of are some of the changes and differences between the book and the movie?

Wyndham’s Novel Sekely’s 1962 Film Version

The triffids had been contained The light show of the meteor shower has caused and were farmed to produce a the triffids and the plants have somehow been

vegetable oil substitute and mutated by the event. help to ease the global food

supply problem.

Bill is a biologist and triffid Bill is a merchant navy officer, who missed the

expert who had been hit by a meteor shower because he was in hospital with

triffid. his eyes bandaged after an operation

Central female character is part Central female character reduced to screaming of the important love story. damsel in distress.

Josella is saved by Bill from No Josella! Just a screaming biologist, Karen!

being beaten in the middle of

the street.

-Modern woman for the times.

-Unmarried by choice.

-Author of ‘Sex Is My

Adventure.'

-Gained a notorious ‘reputation.’

-Self-reliant

Appearance of Susan later in

the story.

Crowd panic, chaos in the Car and bus crashes and wreckage along with

streets with loss of sight and train and pane crashes. reason. Few traffic accidents

due to suddeness of blindness

overnight.

Greater sense of isolation and Bill hops across to France and Spain and radios

no communication with the rest seem to still function of the world.

Coker kidnaps Bill and Josella Coker is a British tourist in France. to help with his plan to look

after and feed the blind. His plan

falls apart when a sickness

starts killing off people in

London.

What individuals and a society will do and the choices that are made in the face of a calamity is a central feature of Wyndham’s story. So too is the question of the value of our cherished moral and social belief systems when put to the test by the sheer necessity of survival. Placed along side Windham’s novel, the film version is little more than a disappointing monster movie with ordinary special effects and little substance. Of greater interest are the subsequent TV mini-series versions and their respective treatments of Wyndham’s story.

I wonder how long it will be before Wyndham’s story along with the various screen adaptations are consigned to the bonfire in a final Fahrenheit 451 solution by the PC lunatic brigade on the grounds of insufficient minority representation, gender discrimination or cruelty against vegetation!

 

*****************

 

Matango (マタンゴ) (1963) /

Matango: Attack Of The Mushroom People (1965)

 

A little known atypical and interesting tokusatsu classic sci-fi / horror film, that is

atmospheric and well-crafted, but somewhat slow-paced at times

Directed by Ishirō Honda

Screenplay by Takeshi Kimura

Story by Shinichi Hoshi, Masami Fukushima

Based on "The Voice in the Night"by William Hope Hodgson Produced by Tomoyuki Tanaka

Cinematography: Hajime Koizumi

Edited by Reiko Kaneko[2]

Music by Sadao Bekku

Production company: Toho Co., Ltd

Distributed by Toho

Running time 89 minutes

Country: Japan

Language: Japanese

Cast

Akira Kubo as Professor Kenji Murai

Kumi Mizuno as Mami Sekiguchi

Kenji Sahara as Senzō Koyama

Hiroshi Tachikawa as Etsurō Yoshida

Yoshio Tsuchiya as Masafumi Kasai

Hiroshi Koizumi as Naoyuki Sakuda

Miki Yashiro as Akiko Sōma

Jiro Kumagai as Doctor at Tokyo Medical Center Yutaka Oka as Doctor at Tokyo Medical Center

Keisuke Yamada as Doctor at Tokyo Medical Center Hideyo Amamoto as Matango

Haruo Nakajima as Matango

Masaki Shinohara as Matango

Kōji Uruki as Matango

Toku Ihara as Matango

Kuniyoshi Kashima as Matango

Tokio Ōkawa as Matango

In Summary…..

Matango (マタンゴ) / Attack of the Mushroom People (1963) is a Japanese sci-fi / horror film directed by Ishirō Honda. It is partially based on William Hope Hodgson's short story "The Voice in the Night." The story involves five pleasure-seeking young people and two crewmen who become stranded on a tropical island. They soon stumble upon a deserted, fungus-covered ship wreck which they discover had been a research vessel examining the effects of radiation on plant and animal life. The crew had eaten some of the fungus and as a result were driven mad. With little edible food on the island, the group of castaways struggle to find a way to survive only to realise that they have each other to contend with along with a mysterious presence in the form of…...deadly mushrooms!

 

Spoilers follow below….

(Based on the English dubbed version)

“I’m the one who died”

[Thinking to himself with his back turned to a group of observing doctors] Here I Kenji Murai, a university psychology professor find myself confined in a prison within a prison. I look out from this window in a small room of the psychiatric ward of the Tokyo Medical Center in which I am imprisoned and from where I scan the larger prison that is the city of Tokyo itself. Yes, the city that encases us with walls of glass, steel and concrete and assails our eyes with the incessant gaudy nocturnal flickering of neon inducements, while our ears are filled with the inescapable and inexorable pounding sound of its mechanical heart beat.

[Addressing the group of doctors on the other side of the room’s steel barred door] Of course you wish to know about the events that led me here and why I was the only one to be rescued. “You think that I’m insane, don’t you? All of my friends died. Every one of them. No, I’m the one who died. It’s true. They’re alive. Then you want to know why they didn’t return, don’t you? I don’t want to tell you the story. It’ll only convince you that I am insane…...”

[Murai nevertheless begins to relate his story to the observing doctors] There were seven of us aboard a yacht: the owner of the yacht, wealthy industrialist, Masafumi Kasai; the skipper, Naoyuki Sakuda; his sailor assistant Senzō Koyama; celebrity mystery writer Etsurō Yoshida; professional TV and radio singer and Mr Kasai’s ‘girlfriend’, Mami Sekiguchi; one of my students Akiko Sōma and of course, yours truly.

“We can expect some rough seas tonight”

There we “reckless children” were being happily blown onward by a carefree sea breeze “away from the masses of humanity” on course toward a destination of endless “La-La-La-” partying with no cares or responsibilities in the world to worry about. After all, Kasai had paid a lot of money for the yacht and he was confident it could weather any storm it would encounter. So there was our cartoon existence – one that would last about as long as the proverbial fifteen minutes of fame..

Suddenly a storm shook us out of our idyllic sense of complacency by snapping the yacht's main mast, destroying the radio and almost capsizing the vessel. Luckily the yacht remained upright but did sustain severe damage. At least we worked together to try and save the vessel, except of course for the wealthy industrialist Kasai who elected to retreat below taking his phony captain’s cap with him and who then set about blaming the skipper Sakuda for our predicament despite him giving the orders and playing at being skipper.

There we were left adrift on the ocean, enshrouded in fog and on a southward course for what seemed like days on end. As the food and water began to run out and all communication with the outside world was cut off, imagine the kind of malaise and despondency that began to settle over us. Seven human beings confined in a small space for an indeterminate length of time without a definite destination or sense of purpose and hope. Is it any wonder that communication between them ceases, a pall of silence descends and mutual disdain for one another eventually develops?

“It’s land, it’s land!

It’s an island, it’s an island!”

Our listless existence aboard the drifting yacht soon came to an end when land was sighted through the fog in the form of a seemingly deserted island. Upon going ashore we set about a rather arduous exploratory trek through the island’s jungle terrain where we came across ponds full of fresh rainwater. There seemed to be a distinct absence of fauna and the fruits and berries we discovered were quite inedible. There was, however evidence of human presence in the form of arranged stones at one of the pools of water.

After further traversing the island, we come upon a wrecked ship laying like a wasted and mauled beached carcass on the sand. Its sails were rotted and an investigation of its disordered interior revealed that it was covered with a mysterious fungus. Further investigation seemed to suggest that we had boarded an oceanography research ship on which experiments had been conducted possibly involving nuclear radiation. We also discovered an extraordinarily large mushroom on board that was some kind of experimental new fungus given the designation of “Matango,” A possible food source? Who knew?

For the time being we had access to some food in the form of tinned food that was located by that idiot Koyama who just dived in and started filling his greedy face with it without even telling the rest of us. In his, Kosai’s and Yoshida’s selfish minds it was strictly a case of first come, first serve.

“We better figure out what we’re going to do”

Together we attempted to work out what had taken place and decide on what course of action to take. First of all, it seemed that the ship’s identity and national origin had been purposely concealed. But why? The equipment on board was an amalgam of various national origins suggesting secrecy concerning the nature of the work being undertaken, most likely involving nuclear research.

Despite our attempt to cooperate to figure out our circumstances, cracks were beginning to emerge, as inevitably happens among any grouping of people. For instance, Kasai who was now the man with the gun had begun isolating himself in the Captain’s quarters and seemed to be under the impression that the group’s survival would depend on him and his ability to shoot game,

Out predicament involved us having barely enough food for a week on an island that was deserted and had next to no edible food. The ship's log contained a warning not to eat the mushrooms because they might be poisonous as “there seems to be a substance in them that damages the nerve tissues.” The mushrooms themselves, “grow in great abundance on the island” and that they had been subject to a strange mutation as a result of the research that had been conducted on the ship. Whenever the former crew members went out to “gather edibles to add to their diet, none of them returned.” It was no stretch of the imagination to guess what the likely cause of this was.

Yoshida balked at the suggestion that we should retrieve and use the yacht again and point-blank told Sakuda and Kasia, “it’s about time both of you stopped trying to run things.” Before any further dissension had a chance to spread, I suggested that each of us set about focusing on particular tasks from building a signal fire through to obtaining food.

Is democratic consensus such a tenuous, false and fickle concept that often amounts to a situation in which the majority of the group agree to what one or two people with powerful persuasive personalities and motivated by vested interests and ulterior motives end up deciding on the direction everyone is to move in? Then there’s the problem of group dynamics involving a combination of apathy, self-interest, group-think mentality and factions that develop and fracture group cohesion. Our little group of castaways would prove to be no exception.

How on earth did we manage to find ourselves in this situation? To you it probably sounds something like the plot of a story taken from someone else's work – like some idea that Yoshida would have come up with or even “borrowed” from someone else and “improved” upon. It all really began one evening at a nightclub around a table at which we gathered. It had been prearranged that we would all embark on this venture and each of us received a pendant to seal the deal so to speak on our commitment to it.

With the fog closing in and putting paid to the idea of a signal fire and with little prospect of finding food, all we had for our efforts was the locating of the ship’s missing mirrors. Yet another mystery to add to our collection. Not to mention Kasai’s taking pot-shots with his rifle at imaginary phantoms!

“You’ve got to DO something!”

As the days passed and our supply of food dwindled, our group was riven more and more by dissension and petty bickering. One night, our captain of industry, Kasai attempted to raid the food stores. As he was doing so, he was attacked by a grotesque-looking man-like creature who somehow managed to disappear before ‘our eyes. A ghost perhaps, we thought? But ghosts don’t leave footprints, do they?

Despite my efforts to foster rational thinking, cooperation and teamwork, cruelty and selfishness kept rising to the surface under the trying conditions we faced. Even that repulsive Koyama managed to outline the nature of our predicament and some of the factors that gave rise to our ever growing disintegration.

Koyama told the group, “in Tokyo, you’re all big shots and think you’re pretty smart. But here you go crazy. ….But there’s a reason for all this. These women. They’re on your mind all the time but you can’t do anything about it. …..Tonight (indicating Mami Sekiguchi) I might decide to take her.” With the women having been blamed for the troubles we were experiencing, no-one least of all Kasai really bothered to jump to her defense until Yoshida in an act of combative rivalry, grabbed a rifle and threatened to kill Koyama. Kasai simply sat there and glibly observed “I know what she’s like” to which Mami retorted by declaring, “you’ve always been repulsive to me” and that she was only with him because of what she could get out of him materially. Koyama managed to hit the right buttons all right - from sexual tension through to greed, avarice and opportunism.

Koyama then addressed each of us by the appellations and designations we tend to hide behind and use to define who we are: In Tokyo Kasai is a “big business man” making lots of money which in our circumstances is not worth a damn, along with me the “College man” and Yoshida the “writer.” According to Koyama, all that really mattered on the island we washed ashore on was that we had to do something and actually get to work. Well, in regards to that last observation I suggested that “we’ve got two things to do: get food and fix the yacht so we can get away.”

“A man says strange things when he’s out of his mind”

All notions of teamwork, cooperation and a shared sense of purpose had now been replaced by a Darwinian struggle for survival in which only the fittest and strongest would survive in an existence marked by opportunism.

Yoshida with his mind addled by alcohol took the rifle and went in search of the creature we thought we had seen the previous night. It became apparent that while doing so he had succumbed to temptation and sampled the mushrooms, not so much for survival but for their hallucinogenic effects.

Meanwhile, Koyama began hoarding a stash of turtle eggs which he intended to use for profit by selling them to Kasai for thousands of yen. I can just imagine him telling Kasai, “the market for eggs won’t last for ever, will it?” The industrialist still preferred to try and buy his way into self-preservation and isolate himself from the rest of us rather than assist with the work.

The social order was being crushed to pieces by an overriding quest for dominance. The men began competing with each other by trying to impress the women with how much food they had collected during their forays across the island. Also Yoshida and Koyama engaged in physical combat over Mami who obviously enjoyed this display of male rivalry over her. The knowledge that everyone seemed to want her satisfied her ego and sense of power she had over men.

After the tussle with Koyama over Mami, Yoshida soon after confronted us with the rifle and declared that he would kill us all and have his way with the women. To his warped way of thinking, if indeed the mushrooms were to turn him into an inhuman monster, then there would be no consequences for his actions as he would not be commuting any crime. Yoshida didn’t get the chance to pursue his intentions as we managed to subdue him and lock him in the captain's quarters, after evicting Kasai of course.

On the grounds that everything was now different, Kasai later attempted to convince Sakuda that they band together, take the remaining food and depart the island in the repaired yacht in the hope that they’d be picked up by a passing ship. Not surprisingly, Sakuda forcefully rejected his proposal. I learned that Kasai had previously helped Sakuda and his family over some matter and had never let him forget it. He had pretended to be Sakuda’s friend but in fact treated him like dog.