Black Rain DVD

Director Shohei Imamura's BLACK RAIN is a somber, restrained, and moving story detailing 10 years in the life of a family who survived the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and the ways in which their bodies and souls were poisoned by the fallout.

On August 6, 1945, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima unleashed a radioactive black rain that fell on people who survived the initial blast. In the years that followed, many of the survivors lived in fear over whether they would die from the exposure. Director Shohei Imamura's BLACK RAIN depicts the consequences of this uncertainty in the lives of a young woman, Yasuko, and her uncle Shigematsu, who believe they have been spared. Normal life eludes them, as Shigematsu is unable to find a young man willing to marry Yasuko. Probably Imamura's quietest film, BLACK RAIN is based on the novels KUROI AME and YOHAI TAICHO, both by Masuji Ibuse. A masterpiece of hibakusha (A-bomb survivor) cinema, BLACK RAIN was shot in black and white, vividly capturing the wreckage of ravaged Hiroshima. The real horror, however, emerges in the deformation of the survivors' personal relationships, whose hopes are stripped one by one. Although the film was made more than four decades after the bombing, its relevance has not passed because many of the descendants of the survivors continue to wonder if they have inherited genetic damage from their parents.

Shot between June 1988 and December 1988, on location in a small mountain village in Okayama Prefecture, near the Sea of Setonaikai off Shikoki. Director Shohei Imamura mortgaged his house in order to get BLACK RAIN made. The film's budget was estimated to be $3.5 million. The film won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. It also won 5 Japanese Academy Awards including Best Picture. Masuji Ibuse's novels were based on the diary of Shizuma Shigematsu, who lived in the village of Kobatake. Ibuse often fished with Shizuma. The characters Yuichi, Tatsu, the shaman, and the grandma are not in the novels. Shigeko's strange visions were also added to the film. After the dropping of the atomic bomb released radioactive ash in the air, it mixed with rain, thus creating black rain. Jizo (the statue that Yuichi makes in the film) is a Bodhisattva who is the protector of dead children. He is usually depicted with a pilgrim's staff with rings that warn animals of his approach. Sometimes grieving parents will dress Jizo in their child's clothes, so that he will protect their souls. Carp--a prominent symbol in the film--signify endurance to the Japanese, because the fish can swim upstream like salmon. Hiroshima's baseball team is named after the fish, and in one festival, various carp banners represent fathers, mothers, boys, and girls. Over a third of marriages were arranged in Japan in 1973. In the early 1990s, this number has declined to about 13 percent. Another film entitled BLACK RAIN (directed by Ridley Scott and starring Michael Douglas) was also released in 1989.

Black Rain Quotes/Excerpts:

"Yasuko, my wife, and I are a community bound by the bomb."--Shizuma (Kazuo Kitamura) to Yasuko's father "Disease can be cured with willpower."--Shizuma to Yasuko (Yoshiko Tanaka) "If a rainbow rises now, a miracle will happen. Not an ominous white rainbow, but a beautiful, colorful one. Then she'll recover for sure."--Shizuma to himself "Unjust peace is better than a war for justice."--Shizuma to Yuichi's mother, Tatsu (Masa Yamada)

Black Rain Reviews:

"...What is remarkable about BLACK RAIN is the scope of human experience it encompasses....Imamura's deft and nuanced use of black humor jolts us into recognition of the grievous cost of survival..." -- Lisa Katzman, Film Comment

"...Imamura makes palpable the agony of living with the unknown..." -- Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times

"...A shattering drama about post-Hiroshima fallout and its effect on victims five years later..."-- Mike Clark, USA Today

"...An epic so fine and self-effacing that it seems to work less as a conventional movie than as something received intravenously....BLACK RAIN is a profound chiller..." -- Vincent Canby, New York Times

This is the only Yoshiko Tanaka video.

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