About

Shohei Imamura's Black Rain is a powerful consideration of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, interested less in the unspeakable horrors of the day and more in the latent physical and psychological effects it left upon the hibakusha - the survivors of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The film takes places in 1950 and follows Yasuko, a young woman whose presence in Hiroshima in 1945 has caused her to be stigmatised by society. Her family attempt fruitlessly to set her up with a suitor to start a family of her own, but each potential partner is scared off by rumours that she may carry illnesses from the "black rain" fallout.

Imamura (who is one of only a handful of directors to have won two Palme d'Ors) began his career as an assistant to Yasujirō Ozu and shades of that great director can be found in this film, in both the deliberately composed monochrome cinematography and the understanding of subtle familial and societal interactions.

Black Rain is a textured exploration of the damage nuclear warfare can cause, beyond the physical annihilation of buildings and human bodies. Imamura examines the shame caused by the hidden sickness placed into each person by the bomb's radioactive properties. Yet he also turns his lens to what he sees as a country that turned their back on survivors and whose invented hierarchies cast aside the vulnerable.

PG | Adult concepts