Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Nicolas This movie isn't a movie. It's a poem. When poetry becomes film you get this kind of masterpieces. It's a slow-paced, beautifully shot, heartbreaking love story. It's a touching, human, meaningful film about oblivion. Duras' prose is just unbelievably poetic and Riva's performance as an independent –yet so attached to her lost lover– woman brings the film to a new level of groundbreaking way of storytelling. The dialogues between her and Okada are about things we've all thought and felt every now and then. It takes place in Hiroshima fifteen years after the bomb and I find it brilliant how the movie talks about the global tragedy that was the dropping of an atomic bomb and the personal tragedy that is to lose and try not to forget the man you loved. As it is the script what struck me the most, I personally don't think this is as much as a Resnais' film as it is Duras'. Almost 60 years already. Everyone with a major role in the movie is gone. But they are not dead. They just became "Hiroshima Mon Amour". Might we not forget them.

Scott44 ***User reviewer Ed Uyeshima ("Haunting, Sometimes Exasperating Rumination of a Love Affair Infused with Tragic Memories", Ed Uyeshima from San Francisco, CA, USA, 24 January 2007) has a good review with good background information.***"Hiroshima, Mon Amour (1959, Alain Resnais)", a tale of two cities, is profound. It is hard to believe that this is the first film by Resnais, as it is filled with insight about the human condition. It also reveals the confidence of the young director, as the nonlinear stream of consciousness experienced by a pair of adulterous lovers can only retain interest if the imagery is superb. Despite its plot- less, "arty" feel, "Hiroshima" is very compelling.Set in the 1950s, Elle (Emmanuele Riva) is a French actress in town to make an anti-war film. She has met Lui (Eiji Okada), a Japanese architect who lost his entire family to the atomic bomb. The two are introduced to us naked and intertwined, and for several minutes we do not see their faces. During the opening sequence, she insists she experienced the aftermath of the Bomb, we see footage reenacting the horrors she is describing and he (correctly) tells her she was not there when it happened. One point that Elle stresses lingers: The Bomb brought the surface temperature of the Sun (10,000 degrees Fahrenheit) to the courtyard now named "Peace Square". Because of details like this, American audiences are not often reminded of what Hiroshima experienced on August 6, 1945. Liu, himself married, wants Elle to leave her French family behind and stay with him. While the two linger in public during early morning hours, he probes Elle for clues about her troubled past. Flashbacks reveal that Elle has never recovered from the death of her first lover, a German soldier. In the scenes where she meets the German for trysts, her face registers no indication that she comprehends why it is not proper to allow a member of an invading army to experience her feminine pleasures. She eventually suffers the same fate as other French collaborators; i.e., her hair is cut off and she is publicly shamed. Her parents also lock her up in the cellar for good measure. Losing her first love and being rejected by her entire community led the young woman to a nervous breakdown. More than a dozen years has gone by but Elle's mental stability is still diminished. Her madness draws Liu in; the more he learns the more attached he becomes.Some reviewers have expressed admiration with the juxtaposition of an attractive French actress coping with her own tragic past with the horrors of the atomic tragedy. It sure is a thought-provoking combination. Are Elle and Liu really stand-ins for Nevers, France and Hiroshima, Japan, respectively? Or are they both representing the opposite city? The premise (of the Marguerite Duras novel) encourages the audience to associate the cities with the lovers. However, it seems more fun to observe how often the storytellers make choices that do not serve the perspective of the "never forget Hiroshima" community. By cutting (or dissolving) away from the Hiroshima reenactments to the lovers going at it in a hotel room, the audience is being encouraged to detach emotionally from the anguished Japanese faces. By having a principal character who is mentally ill and falsely claims she personally witnessed the Bomb's aftermath, we detach even further from the central atrocity. This also is the effect of Liu providing very little information about his own family's destruction. While Resnais appears to hope the audience does not forget the Hiroshima blast, his leading characters invite the audience to let the history go. This is remarkably sophisticated storytelling."Hiroshima" has masterful elements. Resnais is excellent with the Black and White imagery. He also draws inspiration from his cinematographers (Michio Takahashi for the bomb scenes and Sacha Vierny for the scenes in Nevers, France). The music by Georges Delerue and Giovanni Fusco is very jazzy and cool overall. The actors playing the lovers are very good, with Emmanuele Riva the standout. This film isn't for everyone, but I think the 90 minutes watching this hypnotic tone poem is wonderfully spent.Cinephiles know they can't miss this. Film buffs having their own adulterous affairs are encouraged to meet their current lover at the revival theater showing this excellent film. (Just make love somewhere else.)

Jackson Booth-Millard Featured in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, I obviously would never have heard of, and probably not watched, this French film without reading about it, I hoped it was going to be a recommended film to agree with, directed by Alain Resnais (Night and Fog, Last Year in Marienbad). Basically the film is a 36 hour long period and conversation between French actress Elle (BAFTA nominated Emmanuelle Riva), referred to a She, and Japanese architect Lui (Eiji Okada), referred to as He. They have a brief relationship and are now separating, talking about failed relationships they compare them to the bombing of Hiroshima, and perspectives and incidents from inside and outside the attack are seen in documentary footage. It is an interesting structure of repetitive dialogue, mostly narration over small flashbacks of her life, her youth and punishment for a forbidden love affair with a German soldier (Bernard Fresson), and of course the documentary footage of the August 6 1945 Second World War Hiroshima atomic bombing, the main themes of this film are memory and oblivion. Also starring Stella Dallas as Mother and Pierre Barbaud as Father. The film is rated well by critics, but to be honest I don't know if I can completely agree, I found the film a bit too talkative at times, the intimacy stuff is good, and the harrowing footage of the bombing effects, victim injuries and the devastation, is most effective, so for that I found something interesting in it, overall it's an alright drama, in my opinion. It was nominated the Oscar for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen, and it won the BAFTA for the UN Award, and it was nominated for Best Film from any Source. Worth watching!

Sergeant_Tibbs This is the greatest cinematic experience I've had since I saw In Cold Blood back in 2009. It's a simply hypnotic and enthralling film, both technically - with perfect direction, acting, screenplay, cinematography, editing and score - and emotionally. Simply some of the most incredible and poetic filmmaking I have ever seen. It hit me hard. Real hard. It has everything. Stripped down and there. I want to let it sink in more before I give a proper examination and analysis. I intend to do a series of my 10/10 films after my 10/10 albums one, so I will do a review that does the film justice then, or maybe beforehand if I feel I can adequately and eloquently express what this film means to me beyond 2 paragraphs. In an extremely brief nutshell, it's about how heritage and memory defines you. And how that heritage and memory can be damaged. And how the human condition copes with this. And how it feels to be reborn. Hiroshima Mon Amour is a million things at once. It makes my top 10 of all-time.10/10