In the beginning it was the intention that Alain Resnais would make a documentary about the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, just as he had made a documentary about the Nazi concentration camps ("Night and fog", 1956).
Ultimately Resnais decided to make a feature film based on a screenplay by Marguerite Duras. It has become a feature film with one of the strangest opening scenes I have ever seen. We see a couple making love in extreme close up alternated with documentary footage of the devastations wrought by the atomic bomb. The body's of the couple are being sprinkled with sand, without doubt symbolizing nuclear fallout. On top of that there is a conversation in which the woman claims she knows everything about the bomb because she has visited the museum and participated in the guided tour and the man responds that she knows nothing. This conversation highlights the difference between objective- and subjective (or experiential) knowledge, but the question is when did it take place? It probably isn't their bedtime (love making) conversation, isn't it?
The loving couple is a French woman (Elle / She, played by Emmanuelle Riva) and a Japanese man (Lui / Him, played by Eiji Okada). Both have suffered from the Second World War. His family was killed by the bomb when he was somewhere else as a soldier. She had a love affair with a German soldier who later got killed and was punished and humiliated after the war.
The love affair with Lui wakes up memory's in Elle about her earlier love affair. As spectator we only become fully aware of this only later in the film. The flashbacks about what happened in France are in long shots and with a static camera, the present in Japan are mainly medium shots and close ups with a moving camera. I think the director wanted to show that the past has been frozen in the memory of the woman while the present has not taken his definite shape yet.
"Hiroshima mon amour" is a well thought out film. It is a film about dialogue and not about action. The dialogue is philosophical and, I have to say it, a little artificial. The two main (or only) characters in essence discuss with each other the reliability of memory and the possibility of real communication. Can a European really understand what has been going on in Asia and vice versa?
I have seen other films with no action and only dialogue ("Locke", 2013, Steven Knight) and also other films revolving around a philosophical theme ("Rashomon", 1950, Akira Kurosawa). In the first mentioned the dialogues definitely were more natural and in "Rashomon" the philosophical question (if "the objective truth" really exists) was asked with more clarity.
Ultimately Resnais decided to make a feature film based on a screenplay by Marguerite Duras. It has become a feature film with one of the strangest opening scenes I have ever seen. We see a couple making love in extreme close up alternated with documentary footage of the devastations wrought by the atomic bomb. The body's of the couple are being sprinkled with sand, without doubt symbolizing nuclear fallout. On top of that there is a conversation in which the woman claims she knows everything about the bomb because she has visited the museum and participated in the guided tour and the man responds that she knows nothing. This conversation highlights the difference between objective- and subjective (or experiential) knowledge, but the question is when did it take place? It probably isn't their bedtime (love making) conversation, isn't it?
The loving couple is a French woman (Elle / She, played by Emmanuelle Riva) and a Japanese man (Lui / Him, played by Eiji Okada). Both have suffered from the Second World War. His family was killed by the bomb when he was somewhere else as a soldier. She had a love affair with a German soldier who later got killed and was punished and humiliated after the war.
The love affair with Lui wakes up memory's in Elle about her earlier love affair. As spectator we only become fully aware of this only later in the film. The flashbacks about what happened in France are in long shots and with a static camera, the present in Japan are mainly medium shots and close ups with a moving camera. I think the director wanted to show that the past has been frozen in the memory of the woman while the present has not taken his definite shape yet.
"Hiroshima mon amour" is a well thought out film. It is a film about dialogue and not about action. The dialogue is philosophical and, I have to say it, a little artificial. The two main (or only) characters in essence discuss with each other the reliability of memory and the possibility of real communication. Can a European really understand what has been going on in Asia and vice versa?
I have seen other films with no action and only dialogue ("Locke", 2013, Steven Knight) and also other films revolving around a philosophical theme ("Rashomon", 1950, Akira Kurosawa). In the first mentioned the dialogues definitely were more natural and in "Rashomon" the philosophical question (if "the objective truth" really exists) was asked with more clarity.