Kuroi Ame (aka Black Rain) (1989)

When the atomic bomb is dropped on Hiroshima, a factory manager (Kazuo Kitamura), his wife (Etsuko Ichihara) and niece (Yoshiko Tanaka) survive the attack. But five years later, they are all living with the after effects of the radiation and as they watch neighbors slowly succumb to the effects of the radiation, they await their inevitable fate. Based on the novel by Ibuse Masuji and directed by Shohei Imamura (VENGEANCE IS MINE). Filmed in B&W, the film shifts back and forth between the 1945 dropping of the atom bomb and 1950 when the deadly after effects  on its populace begins to take its toll. An absorbing but highly disturbing look at the innocent victims of a horrifying punishment for a crime they had nothing to do with. The film could have easily been called BLACK CLOUD since it hovers over the uncertain lives of its survivors living day to day with impending death. Though the film is unsettling, it doesn't portray its victims as martyrs but rather almost as heroes. Punished for something beyond their control and unable to make any sense of it yet accept it in the Buddhist tradition that life is transient. A film that is full of both anguish and beauty. An effective subdued underscore by Toru Takemitsu.