Director: Alain ResnaiA powerful, melodramatic look at the direct and indirect effects that the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima to end World War 2 had on the lives of two lovers. Elle, originally from France, is in Hiroshima, sometime around the late 50s, to act in a minor role in an international film about peace. When we first meet her she is in the arms of our second main character, Lui, a Japanese man born and raised in Hiroshima. The two had only met the night before and know little about each other. Elle is done with her part in the movie and is flying back to France in the morning. The two are also each married and have lives of their own, so the question becomes whether or not they should leave their encounter as simply a one night affair.
The main focus of the film is the complicated narrative that comes from the two. We watch as they explain their lives to each other with as much detail that their time together will allow. The story unfolds slowly and in pieces, sometimes as if the story is being told backwards. We are never told about an aspect of their lives directly, instead we are compelled to put the pieces together, which sometimes makes the film play out a bit like a mystery. Elle has had an especially troubled past and through her eyes we get to see what World War 2 meant for her. Elle was 20 when the bomb fell on Hiroshima. She was in Nevers, France, suffering from the loss of her first love, a German soldier. Lui was 22 at the time and in the army, overseas, dealing with the end of the war and the knowledge that his hometown had just been devastated. Now in the late 50s, a very different time, the two try to understand each other's experience and try to heal each others wounds. There is a lot of pain though and Elle especially struggles with the concept of love, as it relates to Lui and herself.
Hiroshima Mon Amour is a dark, moody and often times disturbing film. The introduction features graphic footage of survivors of the a-bomb so this film would not be recommended to those with weak stomachs. That being said, the footage is used tastefully and is important to the understanding of Hiroshima as it relates to this film in a historical context. The imagery, cinematography and narrative style of the film make it easy to see why it would have been important to the development of French film making at the time. It is stylized and youthful, but sometimes the experimentation and the melodrama combine to a negative outcome. From time to time the dialogue becomes to heady for my liking but in the end this did not hurt the film much. It took a lot for me to make it through the graphic introduction, and even when the danger of disturbing images is over the film is still very harsh, but I ended up falling for the love affair and the beauty of this film.
My Rating: 8/10
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