White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Remembering the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, filmmaker Steven Okazaki's (director of the similarly-themed, Oscar-nominated, 2005 documentary short The Mushroom Club [VL-3/07]) solemn White Light/Black Rain interviews over a dozen “hibakusha” (people exposed to the bomb), who offer first-person accounts of life in Hiroshima and Nagasaki during wartime (ironically, neither city was directly bombed before the atomic weapons were dropped) and the horrors of surviving atomic destruction. Although some have physical scars from extensive surgery, all carry some degree of emotional scarring, and some of the survivors boldly recount the discrimination that the hibakusha experienced in Japan for years after the war. The documentary also features interviews with a handful of surviving members of the American military bombing missions, none of whom were prepared for the magnitude of the devastation. Wisely, Okazaki avoids demonizing the Americans or casting Japan in the role of victim (the film repeatedly reminds viewers which country was responsible for the war in the Pacific). White Light/Black Rain is an intelligent, often poignant documentary that offers a valuable oral history from those who witnessed one of the most traumatic series of events in the 20th century (sadly, in one of the most remarkable sequences here, Japanese teenagers are unable to identify what occurred on August 6, 1945—one youth guesses there was an earthquake). Recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (P. Hall)