23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A MASTERPIECE, April 23, 1999
This review is from: Black Rain (DVD)
BLACK RAIN is the only movie of director Shohei Imamura that can be found in the DVD standard. It's a pity since this director is still one of the most interesting japanese directors even if he's now 72 years old. Winner of two Cannes Palmes d'Or ith THE EEL and THE BALLAD OF NARAYAMA, he isn't properly speaking a newcomer but his work deserves to be known by a wider audience.
The black rain is the name Japanese people have given to the rain that fell on Hiroshima right after the nuclear bombing of this island. Black and deadly. The movie, shot in black and white, tells the story of a couple of survivors and their struggle to stay alive and be part of the new japanese society born after the emperor's surrender.
One could say that BLACK RAIN's rythm is slow but I think it's a courageous choice of Shohei Imamura in order that we feel the fear of these people waiting their whole life for the first signs of the inevitable diseases provoked by radioactivity. In between, they try to survive like Yasuko, the heroin, whose search for a husband is pathetic.
Two scenes will stay in your memory. Firstly, the description of Hiroshima in comparison of which those horror movies Hollywood produces by the dozen seem, for the least, ridiculous. And this scene when Yasuko, filled with hope, waits for a shining rainbow, symbolizing life. You wait with her, with all your heart, until you remember that this film is shot in black and white. Simply magistral.
A scene access as sole extra-feature.
A DVD for your library.
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25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A prayer for peace and tolerance, March 4, 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: Black Rain (DVD)
This is a wonderful black and white film by one of Japan's foremost Directors, Shohei Imamura. The film also features the outstanding music of Japan's foremost modern composer, Toru Takemitsu. He also provided the score for Hiroshi Teshigahara's classic, "Woman In the Dunes".
"Black Rain" explores a difficult subject, the bombing of Hiroshima, but does it not by assigning blame for the bombing. Rather Imamura depicts the intollerance of humanity that leads to all wars and their equally terrible aftermath. The characters in the film, all very well acted, are dealing with radiation illness and their positions as new social outcasts in postwar Japan. Perhaps one of the most moving scenes is that of the three Buddhist prayers or "sutras" for Hiroshima's dead chanted by a layman in the absence of the clergy. Indeed the film is one long prayer for peace and tolerance.
The quality of this DVD is acceptable but it seems a shame that Fox Lorber does not seem inclined, with this or many other of their DVDs, to provide any bonus materials.
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Life after the bombs: impressive/profound human interest, May 22, 1999
Immamura's tour de force about a girl and her blood relatives' attempt to go on with life after surviving the August '45 bombing. While the film has been described as "restrained", it is also possible to receive the film as an incredibly eruptive effort: one that portrays its characters *always* on the verge of breaking down -- both physically and mentally -- from the wholly destructive and lingering effects of the bombs. While the ending escalates to full-blown helplessness (by using a self-reflexive comment about the limits of black and white film), the acting is an absolute success, particularly by the girl and the carver that loves her.
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