Kane is an elderly woman, now suffering the consequences of older age and diminishing memory, whose husband was killed in the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.

Finally, there are Kane's four grandchildren, who were born after the Japanese economic miracle who have come to visit her at the family country home near Nagasaki in Kyushu.

While in Nagasaki the children visit the spot where their grandfather was killed in 1945 and become aware, at a personal level, of some of the emotional consequences of the atomic bombing for the first time in their lives.

In the meantime they receive a telegram from their American cousins, who turn out to be rich and offer their parents a job managing their pineapple fields in Hawaii.

Especially significant to Clark is the viewing of a Buddhist ceremony where the local community of Nagasaki meets to remember those who had died when the bomb was dropped.

With all her remaining strength, she takes her small umbrella to battle the storm on foot on the way to warn her husband in Nagasaki of the mortal threat still fresh in her mind of the atomic blast which she cannot forget.

Kurosawa told Gabriel Garcia Marquez in 1990:[9]I have not filmed shockingly realistic scenes which would prove to be unbearable and yet would not explain in and of themselves the horror of the drama.

What I would like to convey is the type of wounds the atomic bomb left in the heart of our people, and how they gradually began to heal.The film marked Sachiko Murase's last feature appearance.

[14][15] Kevin Thomas and Desson Howe specifically criticized Kurosawa's failure to mention Pearl Harbor despite the American relatives in the family being from Hawaii.

[16][17] At the Tokyo Film Festival, critics of Japanese militarism said Kurosawa had ignored the historical facts leading up to the bomb.

Rhapsody in August was screened in St. Paul in 1991 as part of the efforts to raise funds for the Constellation Earth sculpture, which was donated to the Peace Park and formally unveiled in September 1992.