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Black Rain

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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.

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.

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.

This film is the first one that I know of that deals with other lesser known aspects of the atomic explosion of Hiroshima. The storey is about a young Japanese girl who was on the outskirts of the city when it was destroyed by an atomic bomb.She witnesses the horror and devastation as she and her family try to reach there Father's factory that is on the other side of town.She takes a boat ride across the bay when it starts raining black ash.That is just the begining of the film and the rest chronicles her life as she struggles to find a husband while under the suspicion that she was contaminated by the blast. When I think of the tragedy of Hiroshima I've always thought of its victims as being instantly vaporized at the moment of explosion.What this film tries to show is that for some victims there pain and suffering would last an entire lifetime. This film is a sublime masterpiece.

This goes to "Margo Lopez" and "Jenni Garcia Mariposa", who are both probably the same person trying to pose as two Latin-American bimbos from different locales. Neither one (if they are really two) have actually seen the film, and are judging a book by its cover. "Mariposa" voiced the same tune for the book "Black Rain (Japan's Modern Writers S.)" by Masuji Ibuse (click on "her" name for more info). In total, that's 3 "reviews" from two usernames. It's as if that's all they are here for. Neither one wrote anything else since.

The film NEVER blamed the Americans even though they dropped the atomic bomb. In fact, the Japanese implied self-blame for what had happened - their government perpetrated the war, and the civilians suffered because of it. But you wouldn't know that unless you have seen the film.

The characters could have been anyone of us: the uncle who can't work as hard as he used to because he is ill, the niece who has trouble finding a suitable partner because of exaggerated rumors, the aunt tries to hold her family together, the war veteran whose experiences of war keeps haunting him and drive him crazy, and the superfical manner in which the people approach a national tragedy. You can find a lot of similar situations in your own country's history, unless you're igonorant of it.

Imamura's masterpiece deserves a perfect 10 from me. The fact that it can get a coward to pose as two "chicks" is a testament to the power of the film (subject matter). That and "any publicity is good publicity".

Wonderful film as aptly described by previous reviewers. Just want to inform potential buyers that this film is now available at Amazon.fr.as "pluie noire". Subtitled in both French and English. So no need to purchase at the crazy prices avertised by marketplace sellers!

After the initial explosion of the atomic bomb "Little Boy" over the city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, the skies turned black and rain began to fall. This rain, black and muddy, was so welcome by the survivors of the blast that some people even opened their mouths to drink the previous water, completely unaware that a new kind of death was falling from the sky. What the Japanese referred to as "kuroi ame," black rain, we know now as nuclear fallout.

"Black Rain" (Japanese title "Kuroi Ame") is an adaptation of the 1965 book of the same title by Masuji Ibuse, following the lives of a small family who were affected by the radiation poisoning following the atomic blast. One man, Shigematsu Shizuma (Kitamura Kazuo, Japan's Longest Day), was directly affected by the blast itself, known as "pika" in Japanese, and carries an unhealing wound on his cheek. His wife Shigeko (Ichihara Etsuko, Samurai Rebellion) and niece Yasuko (Tanaka Yoshiko, Ringu 0) were not in Hiroshima city during the blast itself, but were under the black rain when it began to fall.

Shizuma, Shigeko and Yasuko try to make a life for themselves in a small village where there are a few other Hiroshima survivors, known in Japanese as hibakusha, facing discrimination and health problems lasting long after the war is over. Yasuko is still a young woman of twenty-five, and yet cannot find a husband as the cloud of Hiroshima and atomic disease hangs over her. Here uncle Shizuma tries to clear her name, producing doctor's records attesting to her health, but the hibakusha are seen as tainted, and no family will agree to join themselves to the nuclear family. One by one, the hibakusha in the village begin to become sick and die, and Yasuko wonders when the cold hand of radiation poisoning will finally come to claim her.

A story like this seems ready made for melodrama and tears, but under the guiding hand of master director Imamura Shohei (Vengeance Is Mine, The Ballad of Narayama) we are presented with a much more personal family drama. Shizuma knows he is living under a guaranteed death sentence, but strives to find a husband for the still-healthy Yasuko before he dies. They go about their daily lives, making plans for the future such as stocking a local koi pond but always with the knowledge that the future is not theirs to have.

Probably my favorite scene in "Black Rain" is when Shizuma and a fellow hibakusha share a quiet moment drinking on the porch at night, wondering why exactly it was Hiroshima that was picked for the bomb, and not Tokyo. They aren't shouting "woe is me" or expressing rage, merely curious as to why their homes were the target of the new weapon. That kind of scene, which really shows Imamura's humanistic touch, raises the level of "Black Rain" to something more than a pity party.

The story flits between the present day villiage life, and flashback scenes to the bombing itself and the desperate escape Shizuma, Yasuko and Shigeko made through the burning streets of Hiroshima. The flashback scenes show the horrors that have become associated with Hiroshima; the charred human beings with the melted flesh of their fingers hanging down like gloves, the mercy of lack of pain with even the most hideous wounds due to nerves having been completely cauterized by the blast, the constant cries of "water," "water" by those whose bodies were instantly dehydrated by the heat of the blast.

I went to school in Hiroshima, and have been to the Peace Park many times, and seen the artifacts of the blast in person, the shadow figures burned on walls, the clocks stopped at the exact time of the blast, the photographs of melted humans. Imamura does an elegant job of presenting all of this horror without wallowing in it, and never leaving behind the humanity inherent in the dead and the survivors.

Animeigo clearly considers "Black Rain" an important movie, because they have gone all out on the production of this DVD. Of course they did the usual excellent job with the subtitles, providing several options including straight subtitles, subtitles with "pop-up" cultural notes, and a unique non-subtitle option with only signs translated for those studying Japanese, in either white or yellow. They also commissioned something wonderful that has never been seen anywhere before this DVD.

Director Imamura originally intended "Black Rain" to have a color epilogue. (Remember, this movie was filmed in 1983, so the use of black-and-white was entirely a stylistic choice as would be seen in later films like Schindler's List). Ultimately Imamura was not satisfied with the color epilogue, and the ending was re-shot in black-and-white. For the first time, Animeigo commissioned an edit of the 19-minute color epilogue and included it on this DVD for the first time. I agree with Imamura's choice not to include it in the finished film, but it is really nice to have as an extra feature.

Also included on this DVD under the title of "Multimedia Vault," are several US-produced propaganda films about Japan and the atomic bomb, including "Our Enemy: The Japanese," "My Japan," "A Tale of Two Cities: Hiroshima and Nagasaki," "Atom Blast At Hiroshima" and "Truman Radio Address (6 August 1945)." There are two video interviews produced for this DVD, one with actress Tanaka Yoshiko, who played Yasuko, and one with director Miike Takeshi (Ichi the Killer, Audition) who worked on "Black Rain" as an assistant director.

Ever since Theodor Adorno first raised questions about the possibility of making poetry after Auschwitz, art has been haunted by the possibility of its own failure, the possibility that one of its most remarkable features--its ability to shock the viewer into new ways of seeing--might be eclipsed by the great spectacles of mass death the extermination camps made possible. How could there be poetry after Auschwitz? To this question another could be added: Can there be cinema after Hiroshima? Or is all cinema doomed to failure given the incursions the mushroom cloud has made on our consciousness?

Perhaps one answer to that question can be found in Bertolt Brecht's poem "Motto" which, while avoiding the question of whether art can, in the face of the technology of mass death, preserve its special ability to re-focus our attention, affirms simply the persistence of poetic testimony:

In the dark times
Will there also be singing?
Yes, there will be singing
About the dark times.

Like Brecht, Shohei Imamura's "Black Rain" refuses to remain silent in the face of the 20th century's great horrors, choosing instead the far riskier route of giving voice to them and of painstakingly documenting the devastating effects radiation has on a community while never once imagining that this message, if received, will be heard.

The film haunts the viewer much in the way that the world continues to be haunted by the events of August 6 and 9, 1945. Images linger in the mind long after the film ends, some horrific others hauntingly sad: a reunion of two brothers--one who has been burned so badly beyond recognition that the other at first draws back from touching him and asks for his name, the expedition to see the carp, and Yuichi surrounding Yasuko's house with the Jizo statues. Suffice to say that this is a film that must be seen.

The sad reality, however, is that this film is no longer available to the public, except in the form of very expensive used editions of the DVD. Because I feel strongly that this film deserves to be seen (especially given our highly fraught present) I have begun a petition that I am sending to a number of important international directors to restore and re-release the film. My hope is that in doing so the film will soon be available to the public again.


Eric Johnson-DeBaufre

The film takes its name from the rain that fell immediately after the atomic explosion at Hiroshima in August, 1945, at the end of WWII, that was black "like ink". It looks at the effects of the atomic bomb.

The movie covers the explosion, and we are initially shown a graphic recreation of what happened, with many specific details (such as the shadow left on the clock) that add to the realism.

As Yasuko and her Uncle and Aunt make their way acrosss the centre of town to find refuge in the Uncle's factory we are exposed to rampant scenes of the bomb victims (who look like they're zombies out of old b-movies) walking the streets.

The main of the movie deals with the effects of radiation sickness on the community where our family live. This includes the social effects. Yasuko, a young woman, is the victim of "false rumours" about her health and this causes issues over her ultimate goal, to find a good husband.

Yasuko, eventually finds her partner in the towns token 'crazy' man who also has war related 'issues', only with the sound of engines that remind him of the sound of American tanks. The two find solice with each other and although it is like Yasuko is settling for crazy man for want of someone better she does in fact fall in love with him for no other reason than his beauty of spirit.

Romance, however takes second place to the 'left-wing' view of the director and his ultimate message that "an unjust peace is better than war", told to us by the extremely admirable character in the Uncle, Shizuma.

The title refers to the radioactive fallout which fell upon Hiroshima after the dropping of the first atomic bomb on August 6, 1945. The story follows Yasuko and her uncle and aunt five years after the blast, with flash-backs to the day itself.

The film is shot in stark black and white that reminds one of the documentaries of the 1950's and 1960s. The total absence of any color draws attention to the characters and the horrors that befall them.

Yasuko and her uncle and aunt are unhurt. But we see them struggle through the devastated city. I have never seen any images that better portray what happened in Hiroshima than the scenes of them escaping the destruction. They are surrounded by horribly disfigured people, totally burnt with their skin hanging in tatters like old rags of clothing. Everywhere lay the black remains of burnt people. When they cross a shallow river, dead people float like the lanterns that are released on rivers during August when Japanese remember their ancestors.

In color this would have been tacky and sensational. In black and white it is disturbing and impressive. You immediately understand why the US government has tried so hard to suppress such images. The message is clear, the use of the atomic bomb is utterly inhuman.

The shocking images of the disfigured survivors is in stark contrast to the portrayal of the quiet mountain village life that anchors the story. The beautiful pastoral valley, without the concrete, highways and power lines that now dominate Japan's landscape, insinuates tranquil peace and a sense of well-being and health. A kind of simple paradise on earth. But the hibakusha's (bomb survivors) reality is far removed from this image.

Yasuko and her uncle and aunt live in constant fear of the radioactivity they were exposed to. Around them their best friends die one by one from this mysterious disease. Outwardly they appear completely fine, but they die nonetheless.

"Black Rain" very keenly displays the terrible societal prejudices that hibakusha endured. Villagers complain about the weak bomb survivors apparent "laziness". Yasuko's friends won't see her, afraid they will make her sick, no man will marry her. Yasuko is now a pariah who is unable to find a husband. When she shows papers from her doctor stating a clean bill of health, suitors end up being even more convinced of her sickness.

But through all this inhumane treatment also flows the thread of a warm humanity. Yasuko's understanding of Yuichi, a former soldier in the imperial Japanese army who finds himself back in the midst of the front whenever he hears an engine, tells of her own invisible suffering. The love that grows between them is rooted in immeasurable pain and therefore all the more sincere.

The film is full of subtle cultural references that tell an enlightening story about what is happing inside the hearts of the characters. As Yasuko's inescapable fate slowly becomes clearer, Yuichi places Jizo statues, he has created himself, in front of her house. Jizo is a Buddhist guardian deity who protects children, travellers, expectant mothers and the weak in general. He is considered the "Savior from the Torments of Hell".

Yasuko's uncle releases carp repeatedly and they become an important symbol. These glorious fish signify endurance to the Japanese. Hiroshima's baseball team is actually named after them.

I can't think of any other film that has so masterfully captured the horrors and cruelty of the atomic bomb, and in such a quiet and dispassionate manner. There is not a grain of sensationalism to be found. Just the depiction of family life filled with warmth that is torn apart. The atomic bomb, "Black Rain" says, tears apart the very fabric of society. A bitter warning.