Why deny the obvious necessity of remembering?

HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR (1959)

Far from my favorite nouvelle vague director, but equally far from the ones I abhor, Alain Resnais’ individual approach to themes of memory and forgetfulness has never seemed quite as fundamental as it does in Hiroshima mon amour. Where Last Year at Marienbad was cleverly abstract and even a bit daunting, Hiroshima seems to cater more to the layman unfamiliar with Resnais’ work. Its atmosphere is also more accessible in the sense that it envelops a crisis we’re all familiar with – the atomic bombing of Hiroshima – and analyzes the notion of how similar events often have a way of re-socializing individuals for better or worse. At heart, Hiroshima is a story of love and intimacy, but layering that is a trial between two lovers burdened by traumatic pasts, somehow managing to cope with life after tragedy.

Like Marienbad, the lovers followed in Hiroshima remain unidentified throughout the course of the film. The opening sequence is not unlike a documentary in detailing the morbid devastation caused by the Hiroshima bombing in 1945. Narrating this sequence is an actress, referred to as “She” (Emmanuelle Riva) by most critics, filming in Hiroshima who becomes embroiled in an affair with a married Japanese architect referred to as “He” (Eiji Okada). After their brief fling, the two prepare to part ways, but find themselves constantly gravitating back to one another. Through poetic vignettes and reminiscent dialogue, they begin to reflect on the bombing’s aftermath, gradually reaching a sense of Riva’s past and how it juxtaposes the terror witnessed by the victims of that fatal August morning.

The structure that Resnais employs in Hiroshima has a more conventional feel to it than the hodgepodge of contradicting scenes in Marienbad. The memory motif is also more effectively realized here, as flashbacks to Riva’s past are introduced with lucid, but subtle cuts. Perhaps all that was innovative and uniquely disorienting in Marienbad is lost on Hiroshima, but the unambiguous path from beginning to end is far and away more reassuring. In fact, many of the concepts Resnais attempted to convey in Marienbad seemed more deliberated and thought out in Hiroshima. The idea of forgetfulness, a theme returned to occasionally in Hiroshima, reaches its boiling point in the film’s climax as Riva’s character becomes a symbol of love’s forgetfulness and the brevity and dismay that culminates after a compelling affair.

Hiroshima is largely successful in depicting the mythos of memory on-screen on a personable level, making it easier for viewers to relate to the story in some individual sense. The lovers here aren’t statues or phlegmatic puzzle pieces we’re forced to jam into some convenient slot in order to understand. They’re carefully developed individuals who, for lack of anything else, demonstrate the draining of self and identity more powerfully than I’ve witnessed in any Resnais film thus far. Hiroshima is certainly a landmark of its genre and traces of its influence are notable in the works of many classic and modern filmmakers. For me, it’s one more step towards fully appreciating Alain’s craft.

8/10