Children of Hiroshima 原爆の子 (1952)

Children of Hiroshima is a film Kaneto Shindo. This was one of the director’s first films and really the first film to bring him sound recognition. As the title suggests the film is about the sorrow of the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Coming out in 1952, the film is notable to really be the first film that confronts the bombing of Hiroshima directly, coming out just as the American occupation ended and the subsequent censorship that more than likely would have prevented the film from being released any sooner. It is with this it takes on a sense of immediacy, in relating to the world the affects of the atomic bomb…

The film is about a school teacher who goes back home to Hiroshima to visit her parents grave. It is shot in the manner of a documentary, so we see how the bomb made women sterile, left kids orphaned, and radiation sickness case after radiation sickness case. The ending leaves the character walking past the Hiroshima memorial twice and finally as they are about to leave their is silence broken only by the drone of an airplane. 

With all of this, the novel Black Rain by Ibuse Masuji and film based on it by Imamura Shohei did such a better job painting the entire picture of horror, yet while giving us both sides in showing us the resentment on behalf of the average Hiroshima citizen toward not only the US but also the Imperial Japanese army. So with Black Rain you feel sorry for the Japanese civilian who endured cruelty from both the Japanese military and the subsequent American bombing, but with Children of Hiroshima its one sided in that it becomes all America’s fault and you feel sorry for Japan and that’s is where I feel the film fails as this distortion begets nothing, which the film hoped to bring a lot.

Where the film does win is in its sense of immediacy. As soon as the American occupation was over this film was released, releasing all of the suppressed facts from the atomic bombings. The information given, though now common knowledge, must have been a shock to people in the 50s. For this the film should be viewed, otherwise his later work in The Naked Island or Onibaba are much better…