Product: Hiroshima mon amour [VHS] (1960)
Rating: 5.0
"The interpretation is all yours" - Resnais
Fourteen years has past since the catastrophic consequences of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, when a Frenchwoman, Elle (Emmanuelle Riva), and a Japanese man, Lui (Eiji Okada), find each other in an intense love affair. In the morning when they wake up, Lui wants to meet Elle again, but Elle insists that they do not meet again. However, Lui cannot stay away from Elle as he wants to learn more about her. In reminisce Elle tells her story of the war, which she has hidden for 14 years, to Lui. In the process she is reminded of her current love affair with him which is as impossible as her first love affair during World War II. Hiroshima mon amour is a powerful film that was intended to be a documentary, but after many turns it turned into a featured film. In this film Resnais succeeds in creating an atmosphere of emotional turmoil through the characters as they recall the dark past. This turmoil generates a genuine sense of uncertainty for the future, and I could not agree more with Rohmer as he commented by saying that the film "has a very strong sense of the future, particularly the anguish of the future." This anguish can be related to several factors, but Resnais leaves the audience to make final interpretations of his brilliant cinematic experience.