Trying to finish the remaining films I have to watch in the next two days so excuse the incoming spam.
Black Rain (Shohei Imamura, 1989)
Probably says more about me that it does the film but this didn't land for me at all emotionally. For one, "based on true events" type films do typically fall flat in this regard for me, as a dramatization of an awful tragedy usually feels faker than a fictional tragedy, on film at least. The film also seemingly can't decide if it wants to be a character study on Yasuko or the whole community and unfortunately it doesn't give enough time to either. The filmmaking is extremely impressive as far as recreating the vibe of films from the 40's/50's, probably the strongest example of it I've seen in fact and while the film mostly plays if straight there's a few visual flourishes here and there that are really tasty. That being said, as impressive as it is to copy this older style perfectly, I'll always take something that feels a bit more genuine over it, and its a bit shocking coming from Imamura because from what little I've seen from him he's certainly a bolder filmmaker than this would lead one to believe. It's clearly not a bad movie at all, just not for me I suppose.
Black Rain (Shohei Imamura, 1989)
Probably says more about me that it does the film but this didn't land for me at all emotionally. For one, "based on true events" type films do typically fall flat in this regard for me, as a dramatization of an awful tragedy usually feels faker than a fictional tragedy, on film at least. The film also seemingly can't decide if it wants to be a character study on Yasuko or the whole community and unfortunately it doesn't give enough time to either. The filmmaking is extremely impressive as far as recreating the vibe of films from the 40's/50's, probably the strongest example of it I've seen in fact and while the film mostly plays if straight there's a few visual flourishes here and there that are really tasty. That being said, as impressive as it is to copy this older style perfectly, I'll always take something that feels a bit more genuine over it, and its a bit shocking coming from Imamura because from what little I've seen from him he's certainly a bolder filmmaker than this would lead one to believe. It's clearly not a bad movie at all, just not for me I suppose.