Hiroshima, mon amour

This is surely one of the most impressive movies i know. It is also a very impressive portrait of a woman. Don't expect to see an ordinary love story -it is as not so much a love story as a story of a wounded person meeting a wounded city. A story about two people hurt by peace. Even though it is over more than four decennia old it feels surprisingly new. The reason for this must be the beautiful photography -starting with the very first shots of the two lovers- and the deliberate moving away from conventional script writing by Marguerite Dumas. The movie has the feel of an opera, with the music of Georges Delerue as a moving force. I thought it was enchanting, and it stayed with me for days after.

The comparison between heart break and the Hiroshima bombing is beautiful. The film is about the pain of memories forgotten and remembered. Just as the pain of lost love will be forgotten so too have the horrors of Hiroshima. The scars will always be there but that feeling of pain and isolation as the world celebrates while you mourn will be lost in the past. Lui is helping to rebuild Hiroshima as an architect and Elle has fled Nevers, the place of her love affair with a German soldier. The film represents Frech New Wave in it's reaction against the Hollywood style. The plot is reminiscent of Brief Encounter and Casablanca (they even go to a bar called Casablanca at one point) but the films style is vastly different. Action will jump in time while conversation remains the same, the story jumps around chronologically and we are often unsure of where precisely in time we are. The reason it sets itself apart from other new ave films is it's use of style. Jump cuts and screwing with the chronology are not used because they can be but for a purpose. The chronology is off because the scenes are memories acting like real memories and flowing randomly. The cuts help accentuate how little time these two lovers have with each other before they will be parted. An excellent film well-deserved of it's excellent reputation.

I saw this thirty or so years ago. I don't remember it moving me profoundly, but then so many things at that age routinely inject you with massive change without you knowing. Seeing it now gives me great, great appreciation for what it is. And though I have been previously exposed, it washed over me all over again.

It has a laconic pace. Usually, one leverages this for relaxation into nature. Robert Redord. Here it relaxes into a tension of a different order, a quiet insistent striving for connection, like "In the Mood for Love." In this case though, the filmmaker has turned that yearning sideways so you have three dimensions of pull.

You have the desire for romance, here presented in a way that is more engaging than usual because of its folding into the other dimensions. You have the desire to comprehend war, war defined here as the sacrifice of innocents and war as a sort of incomprehensible desire running in parallel to all the other incomprehensible desires we see, every one.

And you have the desire of a film to reach into the inner world of ourselves. Film itself is a character here, with its own desires and doubts. The three of these fold in such a way that as we spend time with them we have to fill it by pouring ourselves into the film because it pulls story from us rather than serving it in timely patter.

Its an open world, made open by providing an amazing skeleton, on which we are surprised to find our own flesh and our own wondering about next actions.

He, an architect, she an actress, both highly cinematic beings. Both in Hiroshima with folded cranes over dying souls in beds. Both, this is us now, wondering, shall we do it? Shall she stay? What will it mean? Surely that the world will not be saved, not even a little, not even that they may try. Or will they? Should they?

This is such an open framework that not only do you pour yourself into it, but other filmmakers can and do. You owe it to yourself to see "H Story." after this. Or better, before. Hah!

Ted's Evaluation -- 4 of 3: Every cineliterate person should experience this.

As a college freshman some 45 years ago, I saw this film in the student union They had a commitment to art films. I have to say that I do remember the stream of dialog between the two characters but little about the content. I knew he (the Japanese man) had lost his family on that August day. I recall her pulling inward as he becomes a bit demanding. Watching it with mature eyes and a fresh view of the world, I was brought back to these two traumatized characters and the war that changed them forever. It begins with a discussion of the Hiroshima museum which contains pictures and artifacts from that fateful day. He keeps telling her that she has not seen Hiroshima as they lay entwined in bed. His pain is more predictable. He lost his family that day while he was away. Hers takes a more melancholy road. As she opens up, she tells the story of a love affair with a German soldier whom she would meet in all manner of places. One day she found him dying, curled up on the ground. She sits with him until he dies. New of their trysts gets out and she is ostracized by her community, her hair cropped, beaten, and thrown in a cellar by her own family. She has not told this story to anyone, including her own husband, until now. While she feels somewhat liberated the pain is too deep. The Japanese man, also married, wants her to stay in Hiroshima. The movie is about the relationship going forward with such damaged people. She repeatedly tries to escape him, but he keeps resurfacing. The sad thing is that she desires him and so it's not as if she is being stalked. Resnais is a master with the camera, using black and white contrasting images, engaging flashbacks, close-ups. One really marvelous scene is where the young woman, who has been playing a small part in an anti-war film, is nearly trampled by protesters carrying signs. Hiroshima is constantly in her face. She has been hurt so badly by the war and is carrying a load of guilt. War carries with it a loss of innocence and pain beyond the obvious. This film really captures this.

It's nearly impossible to talk about "Hiroshima, Mon Amour" in the same language I use to talk about other films. Even people used to international cinema may find themselves somewhat boggled by this visual tone poem. It's beautiful, and it leaves a distinct impression, but it does so in the way that a striking and unexpected image would, not in the way that an accessible film narrative would. Therefore, it interests without ever fully engaging.

To say that Resnais' film has something in common with silent cinema would be misleading, because sound certainly matters. But the movie definitely feels like a piece of non-verbal cinema, where sensation matters more than cognition.

A movie I probably need to see again to truly appreciate.

Grade: A