Hiroshima Mon Amour, an Alain Resnais film from 1959. Prepare yourself. This movie is daunting and emotionally overwhelming. It has depth, style and raw emotion, so it's highly recommended by me. A simple plot description is that, there's an impossible love story between an American actress and a Japanese man who are haunted by old memories and past emotions. The movie is all about reality, memories and forgetting. Forgetting being the strongest theme, as the film revolves around the fleeting power of a moment, a lover or a place.
The film starts out with, "No, you saw nothing at Hiroshima." As although both of them know what happened after the bomb and can retell it, neither were there. Neither experienced the tragedy themselves. The American woman, played by the beautiful Emmanuelle Riva, as not there. She was in Paris. An her Japanese lover, played by Eiki Okada wasn't either. This introduces us to the theme was being aware, experiencing something and slowly beginning to forget it. A theme that returns time and time again throughout the film.To simply state what the movie is about is difficult. To me, it was about experiencing something and it slipping away. It's memory haunting you, but the details of it fading with time. The audience learns about a German lover in Nevers who died in the war. A Japanese wife that fades into the background, never to be elaborated or discussed. It's about how past memories that haunt the future, impact how the two characters chose to live their lives. How a missed opportunity, a lost lover or the memories of a distant village shape the realities of the present. It's how the past influences the characters inability to chose their own fate. It ends by another love story being a lost opportunity. One that will eventually fade into a distant memory. One called "Hiroshima."
The film's style compliments the beauty of Resnais story development. The film comes to life with lengthy monologues, simple soundtrack and rapidly changing camera angles. It's almost as though Resnais puts the audience in a dance. The music gracefully interwoven, the dialogue poetic and the camera angles flow rhythmically. This film is really a piece of art.
There is so much to talk about with this film. The style is undoubtably modern. The music by Giovanni Fusco, is absolutely amazing. It works seamlessly with the film, changing to best suit the underlying themes, moods and pace of the scene. The soundtrack may be the best I've ever heard. There are moments when the fast paced, light, eccentric composition fits perfectly with the modern architecture of the city. Then there's the slow, rhythmic, dark compositions for two lovers, from different worlds trying to find a common thread.The film takes on a musical quality, one where the audiences dances through the plotline. One in which, not only the style, but the entire content is like a cyclical flow, flowing from the beginning and returning back in the end. I think the film stands out as rhythmic and completely inspiring is that it combines poetry and film. Lines like, "While my body is still ablaze with the memory of you, I'd like to see Neveres again. The Loire. The lovely popular trees of Nevers. I give you up to oblivion, A dime store romance. I consign you to oblivion."
A dime store romance? Ah, beautiful. Resnais' script is like absolutely fantastic. This movie really shows how visionary cinema is. Film is the ultimate unifier. It brings together writing, visual art, acting and music. Each of these artistic aspects is articulated in the most profound manner. Even the plot line is poetic. A "silly young girl" who is lost in the memories of a German lover who she met on the banks of the Loire. A Japanese man who earns to be awake. A city nursing the wounds of a horrific bomb.
This film is hauntingly beautiful. A story where two lovers are lost and haunted by their past, unable to see the beauty of potential happiness, lost in a foreign city, unaware of the potential of the present.
4/5. Highly recommended
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