‘Rhapsody in August’

This 1991 film is the most intimate drama of Akira Kurosawa’s long and distinguished career, centering on three generations of one family. Its gentlesness is deceptive, however, for it touches upon the eternal themes of war and reconciliation. It turns upon a Eurasian man (Richard Gere, right, with Sachiko Murase), a native of Hawaii, who decides to visit the aunt (Sachiko Murase) he has never met and who lives outside Nagasaki, where she survived its atom bombing in 1945. Gere blends into the film’s ensemble cast easily, and Kurosawa effortlessly evokes the warm feelings that hold families together, the importance of ancient religious ritual and the beauty of nature. Since the film deals with a Japanese family with relatives that are Hawaiian, Kurosawa could so easily have made the connection between Pearl Harbor and Nagasaki (and Hiroshima) but, disappointingly, he resists doing this. He’s made a lovely film but backed away from the chance to make another masterpiece (TMC Thursday at 11:50 a.m.).