The basic element for a successful neo-noir movie is atmosphere. You can have the lousiest story and yet with the help of the visuals you can make your movie shine. Black Rain doesn't have the revealing storyline or the great twist or even the characters that can drive you mad. But it has taste and that's more than enough. It has that inexplicable thing that can be achieved only through the film language and can make the movie penetrate you like a piercing instrument. You can see the charm and the allure of the movie through its frames and lighting. It has the neo-noir devil inside of it that movie. It has that highly bewitching flavor, that can be found at every little detail of the film, that seems to be unimportant to the eye of the clueless, but to the eye of an authentic cinephile it marks a brave universe of totally beautiful frames and synthesis that come into your eyes and steal your breath away.
I have argued before that cinema is pure emotion. It's what your heart tells you and not what your brain understands. You have numerous surrealistic movies that you don't understand even the half of it, but you are taken completely by the beauty of the film. In the same way Black Rain might be an even cliche movie. A movie that could be a by-the-numbers film, but the treatment of the story, in its visual form by Ridley Scott makes the movie one of those forgotten gems that have much to offer to the viewer. Audience longs for a journey, it longs for that highly idiosyncratic trip that only the art of cinema can offer. And Black Rain offers a highly spectacular journey to the depths of cinema, to the skies of visual creation, to the seas of neo-noir, high contrast, dark and white philosophy of the art.
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