Pioggia nera

I am a pioneer to the films of Shohei Imamura. I've been aware of his legacy, which ranks alongside other Japanese directors such as Yasujiro Ozu and Akira Kurosawa, for a long time but I've only just started to expose myself to his creative prowess. The first and only Imamura movie that I have seen to date is his 1989 film "Black Rain" unrelated to the Michael Douglas thriller of the same name. And all I can say is that based on this one experience, I am more than ecstatic to continue delving into this artist's plethora of films.

Mr. Imamura was celebrated for the way that he provocatively told stories that exposed the good and bad in not mankind, but the society of his own country. In this film, for example, he examines the effects of the bombing of Hiroshima on a small group of people. However, as one would not expect from a Japanese filmmaker (or any director, regardless of his race) he does not go for a sentimental approach. He does not go for a cheap shot plot that could be worked into a target for political controversy and false anti-American accusations.

"Black Rain" is not about who dropped the bomb or why it was dropped. What it is about is the way that the bombing or Hiroshima and Nagasaki influenced not only the physical health of Japanese people, but their morality and sense of ethics. After the movie's sobering open, it follows an aunt and uncle and their attempts to find a husband for their niece. The problem is that all three of them were exposed to the radiation of the H-bomb and have, in many ways, been shunned by those who were fortunate enough to escape the nuclear holocaust. During this time, radiation poisoning was like a scarlet letter: a label forewarning the healthy from the condemned as if the victims of Hiroshima had brought this tragedy upon themselves. Just as people in the United States turned on each other after the loss of the Vietnam War, the people of Japan turned on each other following their loss. And Mr. Imamura shows that with astounding detail.

That great New York Times critic Vincent Canby made a sobering remark in his excellent review of the film. Mr. Imamura's intent was not to make us weep, but to open our eyes and make us think about our own morality. Because after all, isn't there a fair amount of scapegoating placed upon people with tuberculosis, cancer, and AIDS in our own society?

Mr. Imamura, like his peer Akira Kurosawa, was clearly an artist with an eye for detail. It can be found all throughout his film, but just look at the opening sequence, depicting the bombing. There is a real sense of horror in the movie as we see the mushroom cloud, the poisonous black rain, and finally the decimation of the city itself. As many characters in this scene note, "Hiroshima is gone" and replaced with an apocalypse created by man.

Mr. Imamura co-wrote the screenplay with Toshiro Ishido and created a very memorable story. He has also has a great cast. Kazuo Kitamura and Etsuko Ichihara are convincing both physically and psychically as the aunt and uncle fearing their own deaths but hoping for a better life for their niece. She is played by Yoshiko Tanaka, a very good actress whom Godzilla fans will likely recognize. Supporing performances are created by Shoichi Ozawa, Keisuek Ishida, Akiji Kobayashi, and many others, all of whom help complete this magnificent, haunting portrait of humanity.

"Black Rain" is a very, very good movie that I think should be required study in not only film and film history classes, but sociology as well. For there is a lot of psychological footnotes made by Mr. Imamura regarding society, ethics, and social status. And furthermore, he had the guts not to wrap up with a throwaway ending, but an ending that leaves you in the place of many Japanese people of the late 40s/early 50s: hoping for the best, but fearing the worst.

The opening of Imamura's masterpiece avoids mere sensationalism in its depiction of the unfathomably horrifying events of August 6th, 1945, in which 90% of Hiroshima and tens of thousands of lives were annihilated in an instant. Instead, Imamura emphasizes the unprecedented strangeness of the catastrophe, focusing on such portentous images as the diabolic mushroom cloud louring silently in the distance and the black rain that spatters a beautiful young woman's face. The rest of the film traces the ramifications of the latter incident, bringing the atomic holocaust and its aftermath (over 100,000 people died of radiation poisoning) down to the intelligible level of the plight of Yasuko (Yoshiko Tanaka) and her small "community bound by the bomb."

The survivors strive for normalcy and continuity, most notably by attempting to find a suitable marriage for Yasuko, but the imminent possibility of radiation sickness shadows every aspect of their lives. Yasuko's potential suitors, naturally enough, shy away from a young woman, no matter how attractive, who might suddenly grow sick and die. Genuine love, when it finally does appear, does so unexpectedly and ambiguously. We are left wondering if love across class lines is more a token of Yasuko's status as "damaged goods" or of a common humanity, thrown into bold relief by harsh circumstances, that transcends class divisions.

The film's classically restrained style intensifies the impact, the spare, eloquent interior shots reminding us that Imamura began his career as an assistant to the great Ozu. Imamura's mastery is evident, for example, in the paired scenes of Yasuko bathing, the first emphasizing her lovely back and legs, the second how her hair is falling out. The shots stand almost as bookends to the narrative's trajectory, distilling its tragic essence. The film's documentary-style realism is violated for expressive purposes several times, perhaps most notably in a scene that lays bare the troubled interior life of a shell-shocked veteran. Both the score by the renowned avant-garde composer Toru Takemitsu and the stunning black and white photography contribute greatly to the film's brooding atmosphere. When, in the final shot, Yasuko's uncle (Kazuo Kitamura), the film's laconic narrator, looks to the vacant sky for a rainbow as a sign of hope and regeneration, the black and white imagery suddenly becomes so poignant that it is almost unbearable. Few films from Japan (or anywhere else, for that matter) could be compared to the great, humanist Japanese masterpieces of the 1950s. This film is one of them. When I finished viewing it for the first time, I sat stunned, unable to move for at least five minutes, overwhelmed as I was by the emotions great tragedy should inspire: terror and pity.

Not many Japanese films have dared to confront the shame and neglect felt by victims of post-Hiroshima atomic fallout, which makes this sober, emotional portrait of slow death by radiation poisoning one of the more emotional dramas in recent memory. Most of the story revolves around a young woman unable to marry because of her condition, with vivid flashbacks to the chaos of August 6th, 1945, The recreation of Hiroshima after the blast is unflinching in its horror, but can't begin to suggest the impact of the actual devastation, and these scenes are often at odds with the rest of the film: a gentle domestic drama characterized more by its reserve, dignity, quiet poetry, and sometimes over-earnest anti-war appeals ("…war is bad", observes one character). Even with such powerful subject matter, the lasting impression of the film is one of grace, subtlety, and profound sadness.

Shohei Imamaura's Black Rain was released in 1989 just at the onset of the AIDS epidemic, a fact that gives the film about the slow deterioration of Hiroshima radiation victims an added poignancy. The black rain in the title refers to the combination of ash, radioactive fallout, and water that fell one or two hours after the explosion. There have been other books and films about the dropping of the atomic bomb but none as unique and powerful as this one. Based on a novel by Masuji Ibuse who gathered information from interviews and the diaries of real-life bomb victims, the film depicts how an entire family is affected psychologically as well as physically by the bomb years after the original explosion. It is a horrifying vision but one that resonates with deep compassion for humanity.

The film begins in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 as soldiers and civilians go about their normal daily activities. Suddenly a blinding light flashes and a thunderous blast is heard. Almost every single building is destroyed or damaged beyond repair. The first atomic bomb ever dropped on a city is now a part of history. Survivors must somehow restart their lives, unaware of the bomb's devastating after effects. Filmed in high-contrast black and white, the story centers around Yasuko (Yoshiko Tanaka), a young woman who is caught in the radioactive rain as her boat heads back to the city to search for friends and relatives. In Hiroshima, Imamura shows us indelible images that remain with us: a young boy with skin hanging from his body pleads with his brother to recognize him, an older man is in tears over his inability to free his son from piles of debris, a mother is in torment as she rocks the blackened body of her child.

When the family returns to their rural home, Yasuko's life is forever changed. She sees her friends dying around her and waits for the inevitable bouts of radiation sickness that have already affected her Uncle Shigematsu Shimuza (Kazuo Kitamura) and Aunt Shigeko Shimuza (Etsuko Ichihara). Pretending that there is only business as usual, the family denies that the bomb has affected Yasuko. "She forgot how Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed. Everyone forgot it. They forget the hell of fire and go to rallies like an annual festival. I'm sick of it," says a friend Katayama (Akiji Kobayashi). Yasuko internalizes the tragedy, feeling shame for being different than others and guilty for being contaminated.

When her aunt and uncle try to find her a husband, the eligible men refuse to marry her because of suspicions about her health, even though Shigematsu has copied her diary to prove that she wasn't directly exposed to the bomb. The only suitor she feels comfortable with is another damaged man, Yuichi (Keisuke Ishida), who has a panic attack every time he hears the roar of an engine. At the end, the beauty of life shows itself ever so fleetingly when Yasuko goes to the pond and sees a sight she has been longing for all her life, the king carp jumping in the water, playfully as if to say that beyond despair there is still joy. Sadly we hear on the radio statements by politicians about using the bomb once again in the Korean War. "Human beings learn nothing", says Shigematsu. "They strangle themselves. Unjust peace is better than a war of justice. Why can't they see?" Immamura's Black Rain has hopefully allowed all of us to see more clearly.

It infuriates me no end that, now and forever, I will have to identify this movie (which I consider a masterpiece, and I don't use that word lightly) with the qualifier "Not the Michael Douglas movie!" Not only are the titles the same, but they refer to the same thing- the radioactive fallout that rained upon the survivors of the first nuclear bombings. In Imamura's film, this is no cheap metaphor; the whole movie is about the fallout, physical and emotional, from Hiroshima and the war itself. As the deterioration of a couple and their grown niece becomes more grimly clear, the ironic imagery becomes more potent, from the old clock that is reset each night to the stone gods that gradually pile up outside the heroine's door. (These, in turn, are carved by a shellshocked veteran who is compelled, in a series of tragicomic episodes, to attack anything with a motor that approaches the town.) The bombing day itself is shown in piecemeal flashbacks that are coolly horrifying. Yet "Black Rain" ("NtMDm!") can be watched, even repeatedly, because of Imamura's compassion for his characters. I repeat: a masterpiece.