Often considered to be one of the best movies of the French New Wave, Hiroshima Mon Amour has a strange and foreboding atmosphere to it while simultaneously being rather tame by modern film standards. While there's quite a number of sexual scenes in it, it can almost be considered a world war 2 movie because of its title and the backstories of the main characters. The movie starts with a rather long prologue which is narrated by a female voice. In it, we are shown the horrible destruction caused by the first atom bomb that was dropped on japan toward the end of world war 2. Eventually, the prologue ends and the source of the female voice is revealed; a woman played by Emmanuelle Riva. She has no actual name. She's currently in a relationship with a man played by Eiji Okada (who has no name either). Both of them are living in Hiroshima, and it's been over a decade since the war left it a pile of rubble. The female main character is shown to have a great disdain for armed conflict, and goes to work on the set of an anti-war movie. Even though it's revealed her and her lover haven't been together for very long, it is already almost time for them to go their own ways. When night comes, both of them go to a restaurant and tell each other about their past selves. As it turns out, both of them were rather directly involved in world war 2. The girl was raised in the french town of Nevers, a small settlement that was overtaken by the germans when they invaded the country in 1940. Eventually, she found herself wanting to marry a wehrmacht soldier, but he was killed by the americans when the town was liberated. People eventually found out about her relationship with this enemy combatant and punished her by sealing her in her parent's basement for days on end. The man on the other hand explains how he had a much more personal role in the war, and was drafted into the IJA and was away from his home town of Hiroshima the day it got nuked. After the war, both of these characters moved to the city. The man asks the girl one last time if she wants to stay in japan, but she declines as he is already married. While preparing to go back to france, the girl dejectedly heads back to her hotel room, and gets mad when she finds out the man has followed her. She wants to forget about her time with him now that she has to leave, and tells him she's already forgetting his identity. It's then revealed that the nameless characters have the same names as their cities of origin, with the girl being called Nevers and the man being named Hiroshima. Because this movie was a cooperative effort between france and japan, it shows scenery from both nations, although it isn't immediately obvious. While many people consider this film to be amazing, I'll be the first to say that I did not understand the ending. I suppose it means that because the girl represents a french city and her lover represents a japanese one, it's saying how ww2 is over and any hostilities between people from countries that opposed each other during the war should be forgiven. I say this because france was on the allied side during the war (before it was invaded) and japan was on the opposite side, fighting with the nazis. Japanese and french troops never fought each other during the war, but the characters in the movie still might have some resentment towards each other based on their respective country's pasts. Ultimately, the girl has to leave her boyfriend because she already tried having a relationship during the war and it didn't go anywhere. Probably the best thing this film has going for it is its substantial use of ambience. Especially towards the end, there's a lot of scenes that have little talking in them and just choose to display odd camera angles and far away shots of buildings. Apart from these things (and the love story), there isn't really much to this movie. I thought it was passable because of its connections to world war 2 as well as the use of shadows and lighting, but most people today will probably find it pretty slow moving. The majority of old movies are like that, so it can arguably be a benefit.
Review of Hiroshima Mon Amour
