Capital Celluloid 2021 — Day 200: Sat Dec 4

Black Rain (Imamura, 1989): BFI Southbank, NFT3, 5.50pm

This 35mm presentation, part of the Japan season at BFI Southbank, is also being screened on December 28th. Full details here.

Chicago Reader review:
Not to be confused with the Ridley Scott thriller released the same year, this black-and-white 1989 feature by Shohei Imamura takes on the unpredictable physical and psychological aftereffects of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Based on a celebrated novel by Masuji Ibuse, it focuses on a young woman who’s just moved to a village across a wide bay from the city when the bomb falls. Most of the plot unfolds years later, yet Imamura repeatedly returns to the bombing’s immediate aftermath, and one of the more striking of these traumatic and haunting flashbacks is boldly rendered just with sound effects and changes in lighting. Imamura’s style here, for all its inventiveness, is uncharacteristically subdued and sober. Like his last work—a devastating episode in the anthology film September 11—this is one of the few movies that’s addressed Hiroshima without blinking.
Jonathan  Rosenbaum

Here (and above) is the trailer.

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