HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR (1959)

Directed by: Alain Resnais

Screenplay by: Marguerite Duras

Cast: Emmanuelle Riva, Eiji Okada, Stella Dassas, Pierre Barbaud

Alain Resnais' meditation on memory and how, try as one might, one can never escape or forget the past, follows a French actress who travels to Hiroshima to shoot a movie. She meets a Japanese architect and the two have a romantic fling. They have great chemistry together but both know they can never leave their families, nor have they any inclination to do so. The more time they spend together in the shadow of a horrific war, the more the woman is reminded of her first great love--a German soldier with whom she had this passionate affair during the Occupation. What really got me about this movie were Resnais' incredible editing, conflating past and present; Michio Takahashi and Sacha Vierny's gorgeous photography; and Georges Delerue and Giovanni Fusco's haunting, lonely music score. Their music is a presence unto itself. Though made in the late 50s, Hiroshima's imagery and music give it a feel at once modern and timeless, this is a beautiful piece of work.

Runtime: 90 min.

Rating: NR

Jay Antani © 2006 Perihelion Journal