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MovieMail's Review
Despite being closely identified with the birth of the French Nouvelle Vague, Left Bank filmmaker Alain Resnais had little actual contact with the Cahiers du cinéma group of New Wave directors (Godard, Truffaut, Rohmer, Chabrol). Heavily influenced by Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958), his aesthetic sensibilities were closer to filmmakers such as Agnès Varda or Chris Marker in his love of documentary, of film as literary document.
The power of Resnais cinema is wholly dependant on the power of the writing at his disposal. From his short film Nuit et Brouillard (1958) to Providence (1977), he employed the screenwriting talents of major literary figures such as Jean Cayrol, Marguerite Duras, Alain Robbe-Grillet and David Mercer in search of original stories that went beyond pure naturalism and into the realm of mystery and poetry.
Venturing herself into filmmaking with La Musica in 1967 after achieving great success as a writer, it was Duras that provided the screenplay for Resnais’ debut feature Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959). The film centres on a couple, a Japanese man (Eiji Okada) and a French woman (Emmanuelle Riva) who meet in Hiroshima and begin exploring each other’s traumatic past. Crossing the boundaries between documentary and fiction, Hiroshima Mon Amour eschews linear narrative for a subjective, experimental structure focusing on the torturous power of memory and personal experience.
The extraordinary opening scenes move between intimate shots of the man and woman locked in an embrace, rhythmic shots of life in Hiroshima and horrific scenes of devastation caused by the atomic bomb. Duras’ literary script is given a visual framework of rare beauty by Resnais and his regular cinematographer Sacha Vierny (together with Takahashi Michio) and the director’s meticulous use of alienating and oppressive urban landscapes predates the films of Michelangelo Antonioni such as L’Eclisse (1962) or Il Deserto Rosso (1964).
Largely because of his celebrated collaborations, Alain Resnais was less productive than many New Wave filmmakers during the 1960s and 70s. However, Hiroshima Mon Amour, together with the dreamily enigmatic L’Année dernière a Marienbad (1961), remain indispensable, mysterious masterpieces of French cinema.
Hiroshima Mon Amour is a powerful and moving love story set in Hiroshima in the late 1950s where a French film actress (Emmanuelle Riva), devastated by her treatment as a wartime collaborator, meets a Japanese architect (Eiji Okada) devastated by the Bomb. They struggle to find a place to live between the seismic shifts of history and their own poignant impulses. A truly amazing debut feature.
The debut feature of celebrated director Alain Resnais (Night And Fog; Last Year In Marienbad), Hiroshima Mon Amour is a powerful and moving love story involving a Fre... more >
The debut feature of celebrated director Alain Resnais (Night And Fog; Last Year In Marienbad), Hiroshima Mon Amour is a powerful and moving love story involving a French actress and a Japanese architect who embark on a brief but passionate love affair in 1950s Hiroshima. Regarded as a cornerstone of French cinema, Hiroshima Mon Amour is undoubtedly one of the most influential films of all time.
Hiroshima Mon Amour was originally envisioned as a documentary examining the impact of the atomic explosion on the collective consciousness of the Japanese. However, Resnais was moved to tell a fictional story after discussing various ideas with acclaimed novelist Marguerite Duras, who eventually produced the film's Academy Award nominated screenplay.
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