Movielogr

Rating: 7.5 stars

Tags

Japan nagasaki summer children grandmother atomic bomb Buddhism

All movies seen on 01/03/2015

View on: IMDb | TMDb

Rhapsody in August (1991)

Directed by Akira Kurosawa

Drama | Family

Overview

The story centers on an elderly hibakusha, whose husband was one of 80,000 human beings killed in the 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki, caring for her four grandchildren over the summer. She learns of a long-lost brother, Suzujiro, living in Hawaii who wants her to visit him before he dies.

Rated PG | Length 98 minutes

Actors

Sachiko Murase | Hidetaka Yoshioka | Tomoko Ôtakara | Mieko Suzuki | Mitsunori Isaki | Hisashi Igawa | Toshie Negishi | Choichiro Kawarazaki | Narumi Kayashima | Richard Gere | Matsue Ono | Kappei Matsumoto | Yoshiko Maki | Noriko Honma | Natsuyo Kawakami | Kumeko Otowa | Michio Kida | Shizuko Azuma | Sachio Sakai | Yoshie Kihira | Junpei Natsuki | Setsuko Kawaguchi | Shigeo Katô | Hiroko Maki | Goichi Nagatani | Motohiro Toriki | Wasuke Izumi | Torauemon Utazawa | Eiko Koike | Yukie Shimura | Saburô Kadowaki

Viewing History (seen 1 time)

Viewing Notes

Fifth movie in my Kurosawa week. Definite return to his Capra-esque style in this heartwarming family drama set in Nagasaki. Very interesting to see AK in his last years circle back to WW2 which had a profound impact on his filmmaking. While this movie doesn’t attain the levels of his run in the 50s, 60s or 70s, it’s a very nice and touching story about life told through the eyes of four children staying with their grandma for summer break.

This could easily be a Studio Ghibli movie as it lends itself to that kind of storytelling. Feels like one as I often envisioned the scenes animated esp. when they share folklore around the suicide trees and kappa. It may be even more effective if presented Ghibli style. Reminds me a lot of Ghibli’s Only Yesterday, which coincidentally was released in the same year. Thematically similar.

Thought the Richard Gere stuff would have me cringing but he’s fine even though I didn’t buy that we was able to speak or understand Japanese as well as he does. Seriously. Also I think I’ve seen those scenes with him prior to this viewing because they were all very familiar as I knew how they would play out. Not sure where I would have seen this but maybe I did watch this a long time ago and forgot.

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