Black Rain (1989 Japanese film)

Plot

The film moves between Shizuma Shigematsu's journal entries about Hiroshima in 1945, following the dropping of the atomic bomb, and the present, 1950, when Shigematsu and his wife Shigeko are the guardians for their niece Yasuko and charged with finding her a husband (she has been declined three times due to concerns over her having been in the "black rain" fallout). As the story progresses, Shigematsu sees more and more fellow hibakusha, his friends and family, succumbing to radiation sickness and Yasuko's prospects for marriage become more and more unlikely, as she forms a bond with a poor man named Yuichi, who carves jizo and suffers a form of post-traumatic stress disorder where he attacks passing motor vehicles as "tanks."

Cast

Analysis

The film has strong themes of suffering, transience and the uncertainty of the time of one's death.

Aside from its compassionate treatment of the hibakusha, who were often shunned by their fellow Japanese, this film is remarkable for its terrifying re-creation of the Hiroshima atomic bombing and its immediate aftermath. Its scenes of horribly burned survivors of the explosion, their flesh seared or flayed by the heat, struggling to escape from under collapsed buildings or find cooling water in which to immerse themselves, often dying in the streams once they find them, are unforgettable.

Awards

Wins

Nominations