The tragedy of war is insufferable, regardless of one’s politics, as the carnage seems to most severely effect those who have little to do with the causes of the conflict.

“Black Rain,” an award-winning Japanese film from 1989 just released on DVD, illustrates that notion poetically from a perspective almost never seen in American movies.

When a young woman named Yasuko (Yoshiko Tanaka) is exposed to the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima while visiting her aunt and uncle, it becomes clear their lives will forever be filled with tragedy they never expected.

Out in the country, away from the flash, Yasuko isn’t exposed to the initial wave of nuclear radiation. However, as their only route to greater safety requires them to pass through what remains of Hiroshima, Yasuko and her relatives are exposed to the fall out and a mysterious black rain.

Fast forward five years, and Yasuko is 25. She shows no signs of radiation poisoning, but no one wants to marry her for fear she’ll be sterile because of the radiation. Her dreams of getting married and leading a normal life are quickly vanishing.

This is the microcosm that this film uses to illustrate the horrors of the Hiroshima attack. Filmed in black and white and scored as a picture would have been in 1950–where the bulk of this film is set–American viewers are taken on a journey to a side of World War II that is rarely witnessed in this hemisphere.

A series of flashbacks illustrate the times during and immediately after the A-bomb attack. Hiroshima was not vaporized, as I think many of us are led to believe. It was destroyed, but there were survivors and structures remaining. The lingering radiation poisoning killed many more people than the initial blast. Special effects and make up highlight the burns and melted flesh of the survivors. Agonizing deaths, which seem to occur suddenly many years after the fact, plague a society trying to put the past behind it.

Although this is a Japanese film, it doesn’t waste time laying blame or bias against the U.S. It doesn’t attempt to justify Japan’s reasons for starting WWII in the Pacific.

It seeks to spread a humanist message that war is unjustifiable and that nuclear weapons might be the most atrocious weapons ever constructed. By no means a unique message, it is told from a point of view that I found to be rare and captivating. Despite the clarity of the anti-war message, it is never wielded as a cudgel to beat the viewers over the head. There is no maudlin sentimentality. This is simply a slice of the characters lives as they do their best to move forward.

The acting is worthy of its film festival praise. Even with subtitles (which are easy to read in color so you don’t get stuck with white letters on white pieces of film), you are quickly enfolded in the lives of these ordinary people whose heartbreak and disillusions are palpable.

Even background characters stand out. The most poignant to me is a village man in his 20s–a former infantry captain assigned to lead a suicide squad that was to destroy U.S. tanks by crawling under them with high explosives. So traumatized by what he witnessed, even 5 years later he drops whatever he is doing to take a fake bomb and attack every passing motorized vehicle. Family members and motorists have to drag him away or send him on alternative suicide missions just to let a vehicle pass.

Bonus features include interviews with assistant director Takashi Miike and lead actress Yoshiko Tanaka. You also get a never-before seen alternate ending that is 19-minutes long and in color.

This is truly a must see for fans of historical drama, foreign films, great acting, excellent storytelling and damn-good cinema.