Hiroshima Mon Amour (The Criterion Collection)

The footage of the atomic bomb and the suffering it delivered is important to see.

If ever there was an argument for going with your first reaction, this is it. Around the half way mark of this slight, dull, overpraised film, I resolved to persist in case something of value declared itself. Instead, the few modest virtues of the first half were obliterated by what appeared to be a slow motion parody of mid-century art films, in which vacillating and tormented Emmanuelle Riva (this is one of those films in which the protagonists aren't named) walks the nocturnal streets of Hiroshima and shares her every thought with us in an unvarying hushed monotone, while her new lover Eiji Okada follows a few paces behind with a fixed expression of anguished longing.I watched this early French New Wave film because critic David Thomson, who doesn't like much, couldn't speak highly enough of it. In hindsight, it's pretty clear that his inflated opinion of HMA came about because he was eighteen and impressionable when he watched it, the two leads are good looking and at first glance worldly, and they spend a great deal of time in bed, in a way that would have seemed pretty bold back in the day. That quite convincing scenario of genuine passion and eroticism in a one night stand unfortunately follows and is intercut with actual and re-enacted footage of Hiroshima victims in a way that is so pointlessly arty as to be obscene. Apparently Resnais was commissioned to make a film about the atomic bomb being a bad thing, but somehow managed to spend the money on this story which is completely unrelated, except that it makes the offensive implication that Riva's guilt about not being able to hold onto the memory of her German lover at the end of the war in occupied France is a tragedy comparable with the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives.I did what I could to prepare myself for this film, little realising that no preparation that didn't include the words DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU would be sufficient. I read (years after acquiring it) a chapter from compiled essays from Cahiers du Cinema which wasn't hugely informative about the film, but did discuss mise en scene, apparently a subject of spirited debate between Continental and English speaking critics in the early '60s, when people didn't have decades of lightweight pop culture to analyse and generally spend too much time talking about (if pressed, I'd say mise en scene is the look and the style of the film, as opposed to the story and the dialogue). Another book about '60s cinema made much of HMA's cutting between past and present, which was apparently innovative at the time and went on to influence Nicholas Roeg (famously the lovemaking scene in Don't Look Now) and others. That seemed good to me - I love cinematic genealogy, and it looked like there was an antecedent to Soderbergh's tricksy use of flashbacks - but what we see in the film seemed pretty routine, and was in any case robbed of ambiguity by Ms Riva explaining every little thing in voiceover. Maybe it's like author Geoff Dyer's observation about coming late to jazz pianist and acclaimed innovator Bud Powell, and finding he sounded familiar because he'd been so imitated.If this had been reduced to about thirty five minutes, with the lovers meeting, realising how deeply they felt for each other, but having to return to their spouses - a sort of consummated Franco-Japanese Brief Encounter - it would have been a good film. I could have dug the dated score, which goes for a Herbie Hancock-Eric Dolphy vibe, and the look, and Riva's terrific Monica Vitti-style bangs. Instead, the longer it went, the madder I got, clutching at straws like when Riva portentously says "They say there's a storm coming before nightfall" (which was much funnier when Jean-Hughes Anglade intones it mid-copulation at the start of Betty Blue), or the couple stop for some more silent staring at a cavernous bar named, for no earthly reason, Casablanca. At one stage Okada waits until Riva draws breath between tragic reminiscences and slaps her soundly, which stops her only for a few moments, which I think brings things into focus: this film is The Terminator of arty dullness.

This is an excellent film that depicts the pain and suffering of war on the large and individual scale. By contrasting the two, the film is able to make its' message that much more profound.The film takes palce in Hiroshima circa 1959 and begins as we hear the voices of two quieted lovers. The woman talks about what she has learned from witnessing the bombing of Hiroshima. The man constantly reminds her that she was not there. As the voices (in French) become faces, we see a French woman and a Japanese man. The woman is clearly very happy and full of life. Their relationship is about to end (it apparrently had barely begun). The man does not want to lose his new-found lover and persists over the next 24 hours to try and talk her into staying. At one point, the woman recalls the emotional tragedy that she suffered at the end of WWII in France. As she painstakingly recalls the events of 14 years ago, we watch her gradually disintegrate into a depressed shell of her earlier self. This is the tragic beauty of this movie and an effective way to show the horrors of war. Part of the problem of comprehending the devastation of war is often the immensity of it. As we are shown some graphic pictures and statistics of the A bomb's effect on Hiroshima, it sometimes gets hard to put it in human context. By "superimposing" the story of a woman's emotional tragedy and its' self destruction of her, we see the human effects. Her point at the beginning of the movie; that she know's what happened in Hiroshima, becomes understandable in this context. Ironically, the Japanese man, whose family perished in the bomb while he was serving elsewhere in the army, seems to be the one who was less affected by the war.This movie is one of those whose meaning grows on you. I bought the DVD and, while I'm no techical expert, am quite satisfied with its' quality. I initially thought the price tag to be pretty steep. After viewing it once, I have come to look on it as a bargain.

An end in the beginning. The opening scene of a man and woman's bodies entwined in tender love making. Are the skins smooth? Reptilian? Mottled with third degree burns? As many stories end with two human beings intimately joined emotionally and sometimes physically, a union of two surrendering to the one, happy ending. Yet, this film begins with it. I watched it twice in succession. It is indelible, a great film, and should be required viewing for all American secondary school pupils. It is great more for what is left unspoken, and how moral judgments fall apart at their selfless act on the altar of love. They meet at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, 1945: The hatred of burning, incinerating death versus the tender innocent laughter and living of a populace ignorant of what is to about to befall them: on their heads, bodies. So as this single and so very human thread of life through the simple plot, two philandering persons, a Japanese architect and a French actress, innocents both, in a membrane of illusory love and real lust, tenderly know each other, and then part: both to return to their established lives, separate, rekindled, and yet amidst the palpable background of horror a few years after the atomic holocausts, they just stand, breathe, smile, touch, as the Japanese people also did and are beginning to do again. Life arises. Americans are tapped and called to suspend judgment which softens the viewer's mind into a permeable membrane, open to simple kindness, forgiveness. Otherwise, the message will bounce off, repelled by the precise, hardened forces that enabled the bombs to be dropped on an innocent populace motivated by the white hot revenge to punish and destroy utterly. Alas.

This is a very intelligent and complex view of one of the 20th century's most monumental events created by a master filmmaker - brilliant!

This is a strong and powerful film with an excellent cast, a love story with the horrors of the bomb informing it. Sadly it is still relevant, but enjoyable nevertheless.

As with , say , Antonioni , one wonders whether it is a good idea to re=visit one's icons of that period without prior reflection

This for me is a memoir as I first came across it in the '50s. Also an important allegory, which to an extent shows how times change but (arguably) not always for the best.

Very good