Rhapsody in August

Three-and-a-half decades after he pondered the issue of nuclear destruction in I Live in Fear, Kurosawa returned to the subject in 1991’s Rhapsody in August, his penultimate film, a delicate, serene, moving drama exploring the legacy of the bombing of Nagasaki — and featuring Richard Gere in a central role as a half-Japanese American. “A beautiful reminder from octogenarian Akira Kurosawa that he’s still the master . . . The plot centers on four children spending the summer with their grandmother (Sachiko Murase) in the countryside outside Nagasaki while their parents visit wealthy relatives in Hawaii. Gradually the children learn from their grandmother about the atomic bomb dropped in 1945, which killed their grandfather and made an indelible mark on all the survivors. Learning that his uncle died because of the bomb, one of the Hawaiian relatives, a Japanese American (Gere), comes to visit. The pastoral mood and performances of this film are both reminiscent of late John Ford, and Kurosawa’s mise-en-scène and editing have seldom been more poetically apt” (Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader). “True originality. . . It is distilled, utterly direct . . . extraordinarily heartfelt . . . visually splendid” (Vincent Canby, New York Times). Colour, 35mm, in Japanese with English subtitles. 98 mins.