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Hiroshima Mon Amour - Criterion Collection Actors: Emmanuelle Riva, Eiji Okada Director: Alain Resnais Number of Items: 1 Picture Format: Academy Ratio Format: Black & White Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Running Time: 91 minutes Studio: Criterion Collection Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Region Code: 1 Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2003-06-24 Buy from Amazon |
 "Just a great film"It is heavily montage so a great deal of the film unfolds and you feel that it is being very quick and efficient with it's time and story. At the same time, the dialogue and story that's being told seem to take their time, it's an interesting artistic choice. The film seems absurdist at times because we don't know what to believe. In the beginning the two lovers speak, but it's more a amicable verbal battle. The female declares something and the male denies it. In a way, that's the entire film and possibly a dissection of human relationships, but it's definitely a representation of how people come to grips with the tragedy that ended WW II. I heard this film came about originally posed as a specifically documentary short film, similar to Resnais previous film, Night and Fog. This film is just as anit-war, but is far more complex. I can't get into it right now, but if you'd like see what I mean check it out. It's certainly an intriguing film even after you've seen it. "How can you be happy in Hiroshima? "The action occurs in little more than twenty four hours ; a dream like prologue composed of brief shots of naked torsos intercut with shots of a hospital and museum , newreels of Hiroshima 's atomic devastation , footage from a 1953 documentary Japanese film Hiroshima (directed by Hideo Sekigawa ) , a reenactment of the holocaust , and views of the rebuilty city . Both lovers are happily married . And they decide to trust one to another . But the memories of destruction and the unhappiness environment is a serious obstacle for them to think about the happiness in the middle of the hell and destruction . Hiroshima mon amour shared with the Venezuelan film Araya the International Critics Award and received the Film Writers Award . It also shared with The four hundred blows (1959) a Prix Meliés. Universaly praised the film received the New York Film Critics Award for Best Foreign Film (1960) and Marguerite Duras was nominated for an Oscar for Story and Screenplay - written for the Screen in 1960. The film 's central theme is the memory and forgetfulness ,a sinister leitmotif repeated in hypnotic mood . All experiences in time are subject to oblivion . She is an actress (rebuilding of the emotive memory) and he is an architect (rebuilding of new landscapes, the perfect motive for destroy and dream with a new future). The characters are superb depicted , complex and changing . And one more detail : I have seen this film year after year , and the film , far from getting old , it renews itself , that is the best proof for stating we are in front one of the landmark film in the screen .  "Post-Modernist Pseudo-Intellectual Garbage"Alain Resnais' 1959 adaptation Marguerite Duras' overrated play starring Emmanuelle Riva and Eiji Okada regarding star-crossed lovers who by chance meet in the city of Hiroshima after World War II in the Pacific and have an 'intense relationship' over a short period of time. An utterly frivolous story which no amount of cinematic talent could redeem or add any substance to whatsoever due to the rather minimal literary talent of the playwright. Duras' story is a typical example of the deconstructionist art which began in the 20th century and gained momentum after WWII with artistic works by 'artists' such as Duchamp, Warhol, Shoenberg, Phillip Glass, etc. The problem with such art is that it's nothing more than a reductio ad absurdium in art no different than an architect gloating over his masterpiece when the final structure is nothing more than the bare foundation of a building. As with the play, the screenplay is based on completely unsympathetic characters whose juxtapositions and chemistries are a mystery to everyone except the author of the work: an inside joke essentially! A French actress/former German collaborator in love with an inherently mysogenistic Japanese business man is perplexing if not non-sensical to say the least: who cares?! Somehow their presence in post-war Hiroshima is supposed to add to the sentimentality and nostalgia of the story because 100,000 Japanese were incinerated there during the war? Quite franly I have a lot more sentiment for the 11 million Chinese and countless Western civilians who were enslaved/massacred with impunity by the Japanese Imperial Army during WWII. The play reeks of a 'understand them just for the sake that you must feel sorry for them' theme that invokes nothing but repulsion for the entire work. The 'profound meaning' of the work is absurdedly conveyed through nonsense dialogue amounting to no more than mono-syllabic lines that are as bare as they are meaningless to the likes of: Q: "Are you happy?" A: "Yes!" Q: "Why?" A: "I don't know" If this is what you consider insightful and creative artwork then this is the work for you. Again, Marguerite Duras is a perfect example of the French post-modernist deconstructionist movement that is really not art at all any more than a human skeleton is a full presentation of the human body or spirit. A very overrated piece of fiction absorbed by the New Age pseudo-intellectual movement that aspires to deconstructionist ideals not for art's sake but merely for the sake of being different. Sorry, but one can replicate Michelangelo's David out of crap instead of marble to content himself as being artistic and different but, fundamentally, such artwork still amounts to nothing but crap no matter how you present it. For true works of literature from that period, I recommend Albert Camus' existentialist works and their adaptations to film instead of this snobbish garbage. "Imperfect masterpiece"Alain Renais experimental approach to the narrative structure of 'Hiroshima mon Amour' is one of the finest efforts in cinema history. Whether or not you believe this movie succeeds - you can only admire the approach and the beautiful cinematography of this - Renais first feature. The theme of forgetting or trying to forget is one of the most thought provoking ways of looking at a society (watch Fassbinder's 'Marriage of Maria Braun' for another brilliant take on this theme). The opening montage of images is very unique and beautiful - as shocking as the opening to Bergman's 'Persona'. Anyway, I would reccomend viewing this one and forming your own opinion - which you will inevittably do. "One of the best French "new wave" movies"This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the film. "Hiroshima Mon Amour" or "Hiroshima my love" is one of the most well-know films of the French new wave and defiately one of the best. It is the story if a French actress working on a film about peace post war Hiroshima, Japan and has a fling with a Japanese architect. The relationship reminds her of a previous relationship she had with a german soldier during the war. The film is very well photogaphed and has some very nice scenes of the Peace park & museum as well as footage taken after the actual bombing. It has excellent acting also and remains popular to this day. The husband of a friend of my mother's in Switzerland says that this is one of his favorite films. The DVD has some great special features too. There is audio commentary by Peter Cowie, an isolated music an effects track, two interviews with director Alan Resnais an interciew with lead actress Emmanuelle Riva, as erll as an essay about Giovanni Fusco who composed the film's music. This release is a must buy! |
