Hiroshima Mon Amour

Alain Resnais' 1959 film Hiroshima Mon Amour is at once both a simple and complex story. The movie takes place over the course of 24 hours, although there are flashbacks, and is about an affair between a Japanese man and French woman who is in Hiroshima because of a movie she is acting in. Explained it that manner the film probably sounds banal, but in truth it is a hear wrenching and profound piece of work.

Kong has sat here for a few minutes trying to think of the words to describe the film, but there simply aren't any that will do it justice. Even trying to state what the film is about is nearly impossible. The depth of the two characters (they are never given names), the agonizing memories of the French woman, the way the pain of the entire city of Hiroshima bleeds through the screen and provides a startling contrast to the smaller more personal misery the woman, the unmistakable connection shared by the two leads...words are simply inadequate in trying to share these things. Hiroshima Mon Amour is a film with an intense gravity, and it seems impossible to not get involved with its characters, atmosphere, and themes.

This review is probably one of the worst you've ever read, but it's just too hard to encompass this film in a few short paragraphs. Nothing can better describe the film than the film itself. See it. It was just released on DVD, by Criterion this past Tuesday. Warning: Don't plan on eating anything when you start watching it. The first 15 minutes deal with the bombing of Hiroshima, and it's nothing less than horrifying.

__________________
Kong's Reviews:
Stuck On You
Bad Santa

Hey Kong, Im also a big fan of this film.....I also agree it is hard to verbalize what makes it so effecting. Indeed a profound film of depth and charecter.

Beautifully shot, well scripted and all performances by the cast are top notch.

A film that should be on every ones must see list

__________________
******"The Majority Is Always Wrong" Steve Mcqueen in Enemy Of The People******

I love this movie, & agree that it has to be experienced because it's really hard to put into words. Pauline Kael's review of it is great reading though, since she pans it and all of the critics of the time who loved it.

The only other Resnais movies I've seen are Night and Fog, which I recently bought, and Last Year at Marienbad, which I'm still scratching my head over. He's definitely one of the most interesting directors I've watched recently, & I hope I can find more of his movies.

__________________
**** the Lakers!

The only other Resnais Kong has seen is Night and Fog which Kong found to be brutally haunting. The way Resnais is able to build up the emotional impact in a mere 30 minutes is really amazing. Kong saw it on a DVD of short films before Criterion released their version. Does the Criterion have any good extra features worth checking out?

It has part of an audio interview with Resnais, which is pretty interesting, but the best feature is the music-only track. It's even more disturbing than the regular version, if you can believe that. It's a great dvd, especially for how much it cost (I paid 13 bucks for it.)

I saw this film a long time ago and I don't think it made the same impression on me as on you guys. I remember that it looked good in general and the horrific intro that Kong was talking about. But the thing that I played over and over again was this parade with an absolutely hyptnotyzing japanese chanting piece of music. I remember being totally obsessed with that song.

I remember being irritated over the pretentiousness of the carachters rather than the film. Maybe you will make me regret for saying so now. I guess I will have to see it again.

__________________
The novelist does not long to see the lion eat grass. He realizes that one and the same God created the wolf and the lamb, then smiled, "seeing that his work was good".

--------

They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.