Black Rain

Black Rain (1989) is a Japanese historical drama from director Shohei Imamura, available to watch online on iFILM. It's adapted from Masuji Ibuse's novel about the people who lived through the morning of August 6, 1945 in Hiroshima and carried it for the rest of their lives.

Shigematsu, his wife and their niece Yasuko reached the city soon after the flash and were caught in the black rain — the radioactive downpour that fell over the ruins. Years later the family lives quietly in a village near Fukuyama and tries to arrange Yasuko's marriage. But word of her exposure travels faster than any matchmaker, and the young woman slowly begins to fade.

Imamura shot it in stark black and white, with no melodrama: ordinary days, tea, fishing, and a death that comes for the survivors long after the war has ended. The film took a prize at Cannes and several Japanese Academy Awards. Quiet, heavy, and meant for viewers ready to sit with the real cost of the bomb. Stream Black Rain online on iFILM.