White Light, Black Rain

It came in the mail yesterday (Netflix) and I don’t remember having selected it, but maybe I did.  However, it arrived at exactly the right time and I decided not to put off watching it.

In Japan, at this time of year, over this last week and earlier, particularly in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the stories have been retold, as they are every year. There have been several programs on NHK this week surrounding these events, so that we will not forget.

So, for me, it was well worth the time to sit and view this film, although it was not at all easy.

O’Donnell & Hotaru no Haka

After watching the brilliant opening to the Olympics on Friday night, NHK had a program on Joe O’Donnell, photographer of the aftermath of the Nagasaki bombing. His story was told from the perspective of his son and showed some of his father’s photographs. I was amazed to see that one of the hibakusha whose back had been badly burned (and documented in O’Donnell’s collection) was still living. Even today he continues to undergo surgery for those burns.

I also finally watched Hotaru no Haka (火垂の墓) Grave of the Fireflies, another Studio Ghibli production that gently tells a story of two orphans struggling to survive in the wake of the atomic bomb. I haven’t used it in class previously, but I’m strongly inclined to do so this year.