is a 1991 Japanese film by

Akira Kurosawa was a Japanese filmmaker and painter who directed thirty films in a career spanning over five decades. He is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. Kurosawa displayed a bold, dyna ...

based on the novel ''Nabe no naka'' by Kiyoko Murata. The story centers on an elderly hibakusha, who lost her husband 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 Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state ...

who wants her to visit him before he dies. American film star

Richard Gere Richard Tiffany Gere ( ; born August 31, 1949) is an American actor. He began in films in the 1970s, playing a supporting role in '' Looking for Mr. Goodbar'' (1977) and a starring role in ''Days of Heaven'' (1978). He came to prominence with ...

appears as Suzujiro's son Clark. The film was selected as the Japanese entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the

64th Academy Awards The 64th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 1991 in the United States and took place on March 30, 1992, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles beg ...

, but was not accepted as a nominee. ''Rhapsody in August'' is one of only three sole-directed Kurosawa movies to feature a female lead, and the first in nearly half a century. The others are ''

The Most Beautiful is a 1944 Japanese drama and propaganda film written and directed by Akira Kurosawa. The semidocumentary film follows a group of female volunteer workers at an optics factory during the Second World War, during which the film was produced. Plot ...

'' (1944) and '' No Regrets for Our Youth'' (1946). However, Kurosawa also directed most of the female-led ''

Uma Parvati ( sa, पार्वती, ), Uma ( sa, उमा, ) or Gauri ( sa, गौरी, ) is the Hindu goddess of power, energy, nourishment, harmony, love, beauty, devotion, and motherhood. She is a physical representation of Mahadevi in ...

'' (1941), on which he was credited as assistant director.

Plot

''Rhapsody in August'' is a tale of three generations in a post-war Japanese family and their responses to the atomic bombing of Japan. Kane is an elderly woman, now suffering the consequences of older age and diminishing memory, whose husband was killed in the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. Kane has two children who are both married and both of whom grew up in postwar Japan. She also has a brother now living in Hawaii whose son Clark (played by

) has grown up in America. Finally, there are Kane's four grandchildren, who were born after the

Japanese economic miracle The Japanese economic miracle refers to Japan's record period of economic growth between the post-World War II era and the end of the Cold War. During the economic boom, Japan rapidly became the world's second-largest economy (after the Unit ...

who have come to visit her at the family country home near Nagasaki in Kyushu. Kane's grandchildren are visiting her at her rural home on Kyūshū one summer while their parents visit Kane's brother in Hawaii. The grandchildren have been charged with the task by their parents of convincing their grandmother to visit her brother in Hawaii. The grandchildren take a day off to visit the urban environment of Nagasaki. While in Nagasaki the children visit the spot where their grandfather was killed in 1945 and become aware, at a personal level, of some of the emotional consequences of the atomic bombing for the first time in their lives. They slowly come to have more respect for their grandmother and also grow to question the morality of the United States for deciding to use atomic weapons against Japan. In the meantime they receive a telegram from their American cousins, who turn out to be rich and offer their parents a job managing their pineapple fields in Hawaii. Matters are complicated when Kane writes to Hawaii telling her American relatives about the death of her husband at Nagasaki. Her own two children, who have now returned from Hawaii to visit her, feel that this action will be viewed by their now Americanized relatives in Hawaii as hostile and a source of friction. Clark, who is Kane's nephew, then travels to Japan to be with Kane for the memorial service of her husband's death at Nagasaki. Kane reconciles with Clark over the bombing. Clark is much moved by the events he sees in the Nagasaki community at the time of the memorial events surrounding the deaths which are annually remembered following the bombing of Nagasaki. Especially significant to Clark is the viewing of a Buddhist ceremony where the local community of Nagasaki meets to remember those who had died when the bomb was dropped. Suddenly, Clark receives a telegram telling him that his father, Kane's brother, has died in Hawaii and he is forced to return there for his father's funeral. Kane's mental health and memory begin to falter. Her recollections of her lost spouse have never been fully reconciled within her own memory of her lost loved one. She begins to show signs of odd behavior in laying out her husband's old clothing as if her husband might suddenly reappear and need them to put on. When a storm is brewing, her mental health seems to confuse the storm for an air raid warning of another atomic bomb attack and she seeks to protect her visiting grandchildren by employing folk remedies, which confuse her children and especially her grandchildren. As the storm later intensifies again, Kane becomes more disoriented and mistakenly confuses the storm for the atmospheric disturbance caused by the bombing of Nagasaki which she witnessed visually from a safe distance when her husband was killed many years ago. In her disoriented state, Kane decides that she must save her husband, still alive in her memory, from the impending atomic blast. With all her remaining strength, she takes her small umbrella to battle the storm on foot on the way to warn her husband in Nagasaki of the mortal threat still fresh in her mind of the atomic blast which she cannot forget.

Cast

Sachiko Murase was a Japanese actress. She appeared in about 90 films between 1927 and 1991. Selected filmography * (1930) * (1930) * (1931) * (1931-1932, part 1, 2) - Ayako Kirihara * (1932) - Mitsuko, reporter * (1932) * (1933) * (1933) * ''A Woman ...

as Kane (The Grandmother) *

Hisashi Igawa Hisashi Igawa (井川比佐志 born 17 November 1936) is a Japanese actor who has appeared in such films as Akira Kurosawa's '' Dodesukaden'', '' Ran'' and ''Madadayo is a 1993 Japanese comedy-drama film. It is the thirtieth and final film to ...

as Tadao (Kane's Son) * Narumi Kayashima as Machiko (Tadao's Wife) * Tomoko Otakara as Tami (Tadao's Daughter) * Mitsunori Isaki as Shinjiro (Tadao's Son) * Toshie Negishi as Yoshie (Kane's Daughter) * Hidetaka Yoshioka as Tateo (Yoshie's Son) * Choichiro Kawarazaki as Noboru (Yoshie's Husband) * Mieko Suzuki as Minako (Yoshie's Daughter) *

as Clark (Kane's Nephew)

Reception

''Rhapsody in August'' received mixed reviews on its release in 1991. Some critics made much of the fact that the film centered on the film's depiction of the atomic bombing as a war crime while omitting details of Japanese war crimes in the Pacific War. When ''Rhapsody'' premiered at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival, one journalist even cried out at a press conference, "Why was the bomb dropped in the first place?" At the Tokyo Film Festival, critics of

Japanese militarism refers to the ideology in the Empire of Japan which advocates the belief that militarism should dominate the political and social life of the nation, and the belief that the strength of the military is equal to the strength of a nation. Histo ...

said Kurosawa had ignored the historical facts leading up to the bomb. Japanese cultural critic Inuhiko Yomota commented: "Many critics, myself included, thought Kurosawa chauvinistic in his portrayal of the Japanese as victims of the war, while ignoring the brutal actions of the Japanese and whitewashing them with cheap humanist sentiment." Kurosawa's response was that wars are between governments, not people, and denied any

anti-American Anti-Americanism (also called anti-American sentiment) is prejudice, fear, or hatred of the United States, its government, its foreign policy, or Americans in general. Political scientist Brendon O'Connor at the United States Studies Centr ...

agenda. '' Chicago Reader'' film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum praised the film as "a beautiful reminder from octogenarian Akira Kurosawa that he's still the master...The pastoral mood and performances of this film are both reminiscent of late

John Ford John Martin Feeney (February 1, 1894 – August 31, 1973), known professionally as John Ford, was an American film director and naval officer. He is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers of his generation. He ...

, and Kurosawa's mise en scene and editing have seldom been more poetically apt."

About the Japanese title

The Japanese title (八月の狂詩曲 ''Hachigatsu no rapusodī'') is also known as ''Hachigatsu no kyōshikyoku''. "八月" means August, and "狂詩曲" means rhapsody. Both are Japanese

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...

words. "狂詩曲" is usually pronounced "kyōshikyoku." When this film released in Japan, 1991, Kurosawa added

furigana is a Japanese reading aid consisting of smaller kana or syllabic characters printed either above or next to kanji (logographic characters) or other characters to indicate their pronunciation. It is one type of ruby text. Furigana is also kn ...

"ラプソディー rapusodī" to the word "狂詩曲" contrary to the standard usage of Japanese.Kazuko Kurosawa. (2004). ''Papa, Akira　Kurosawa'' (パパ、黒澤明 Papa, Kurosawa Akira), page 306. Bungei Shunjū. (Japanese) So the correct romanization of the official Japanese title is ''Hachigatsu no rapusodī''. But, often, the Japanese title has been cited without the

in various media. This is the reason why the misreading ''Hachigatsu no kyōshikyoku'' has become more widely known than the correct pronunciation.

References

External links

* * * *
Rhapsody in August
' at the

Japanese Movie Database The , more commonly known as simply JMDb, is an online database of information about Japanese movies, actors, and production crew personnel. It is similar to the Internet Movie Database but lists only those films initially released in Japan. Y. ...