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Kuroi ame - [Black Rain]
Shôhei Imamura, 1989
Drama
Stream - YouTube
From IMDb:
The story of the aftermath of the Hiroshima bombing, based on Masuji Ibuse's novel.
Moving drama that may be a little too on-the-nose in terms of commentary via dialogue at times but that certainly doesn't stop it from being hugely effective. The depiction of the immediate aftermath in Hiroshima may not always be entirely convincing but remains extremely powerful imagery and, imo, the presentation wisely intermingles its timelines in order to not let those scenes become overbearing. The social stigma poured on those who's only crime was to unfortunately be at the wrong place at the wrong time is actually underplayed compared to reality (even if it is constantly referred to) and one would have to worry about anyone unable to empathise with the poor souls at the centre of the tale. The inclusion of Yuichi suffering from general wartime PTSD is somewhat mixed for me, on the one hand it does over-egg the 'wartime horrors' pudding a little but on the other it also allows for part of the later narrative to work that much better and on balance I'd say the latter outweighs the former.
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Last edited by Chypmunk; 06-27-21 at 11:56 AM.