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| ‘Black Rain’ By Hal Hinson Washington Post Staff Writer April 27, 1990 | ||
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But when the blast finally comes, the tone remains the same, as if somehow time had become suspended in the instant just before the explosion. The effects of the bomb are harrowing, but the manner in which the director shows them to us avoids sensationalism, even though the images on-screen are of total devastation: victims with melting skin -- almost unrecognizable as human -- fire, rubble and panic.
Among the thousands who roam the streets in the horrific aftermath of the explosion are Yasuko (Yoshiko Tanaka), her aunt, Shigeko (Etsuko Ichihara) and her uncle, Shigematsu (Kazuo Kitamura). Of the three, only Shigematsu was injured, receiving a small burn on his face. But when the story picks up five years later, the effects of the event have worked their way into every aspect of their lives and the lives of the people around them. Both physically and spiritually, the survivors have become victims of the blast. Yasuko, who has come to live with her aunt and uncle, has grown well into her marrying years without a proposal because of doubts about her health. At the time of the explosion, Yasuko was outside the city, and during her trip in to find her relatives was tarred with the droplets of black rain. Every time a suitor appears, Shigematsu attempts to confirm her excellent health, assuring them that effects of the rain were not poisonous.
But though Yasuko's marriage is of the most intense importance to her uncle, for the 20-year-old woman herself the thought of leaving her home to marry, and breaking up what she calls their "community bound by the bomb" is excruciating.
Imamura has an exquisite sense of camera placement, and in shot after shot the details of Yasuko's life with her aunt and uncle are patiently registered. Gradually, as the film progresses, Shigematsu's friends fall away from radiation sickness and Yasuko's suitors all but vanish. What we're shown is a slow decline, a slow, stately death by stages. And the director lays out these scenes with a masterly restraint that is at times rapturous, at times enervating.
Periodically during the film, the Japanese director revisits the scene just after the bomb, as if his camera were having a bad dream it cannot shake. But the reminders aren't really necessary. The force of the devastation is in every frame.
For all its stately, classical rectitude and poise, there seems to be something missing from the film. Imamura's impudent vigor, which was so much a part of "The Ballad of Narayama" and "Vengeance Is Mine," seems to have been abandoned here for the sake of an important subject. And while we grant him that the subject is important, in telling this story he doesn't seem to be quite himself.
There is a kind of ecstasy behind the images, though, an ecstasy that's held close and cherished, the way these radiation-damaged survivors guard and protect their energy and health. It's an ecstasy that's allowed to come to the surface only once, when Yasuko and her uncle, having lost nearly everyone near to them, sit on the bank of the river, watching a carp jump majestically out of the water. And in that sublime moment, the film's measured beauty is overwhelming.
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