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| A muscular man's back, a woman's red lips and a backdrop of stirring, passionate red indicates strong sexuality on this poster for Alain Resnais' Hiroshima Mon Amour |
A beautiful French actress ventures into a heartfelt affair with a local man in Hiroshima, Japan, where she spends a short visit, and their relationship is reconnected later in the new city built up after the nuclear bomb.
Hiroshima Mon Amour is written by Marguerite Duras (Le Camion (1977)) and directed by Alain Resnais (Ouvert pour Cause d'Inventaire (1946)). The original French title translates to 'Hiroshima my love'.
A poetical narration and a visual side that packs several scenes that radiate clean beauty are linked to footage of the horrors of the nuclear bomb and its at times horrific consequences, - as life inevitably goes on, not undisturbed by these horrors, but nevertheless still, as here, in the guise of a beautiful, loving couple.
The plot side of the film becomes distant and unreal, but the strong camera work (by cinematographers Michio Takahashi (Itohan monogatari (1957)) and Sacha Vierny (Stavisky/Stavisky... (1974))) keeps one fixed on this remarkable, unique film.
Watch a 1-minute clip from the film here
Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Uncertain but likely a big hit
[Hiroshima Mon Amour premiered 8 May (Cannes Film Festival) and runs 90 minutes. Resnais was reportedly commissioned to make a documentary on the nuclear bomb attacks in Japan in the vein of his Holocaust documentary Night and Fog (1956). Shooting took place from September - December 1958 in France and Japan. The film was kept out of the main competition in Cannes out of a fear that it would offend the Americans with its representations of the devastation caused by their nuclear attacks. The film's box office performance at the time is regrettably not reported online, but it was likely highly successful, not least due to its erotic allure. It has also been re-released numerous times. It was nominated for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar, lost to Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond for The Weekend. It also won 1/3 BAFTA nominations and a National Board of Review award, among other honors. Together with The 400 Blows (1959) and Breathless (1960), Hiroshima Mon Amour was among the most important films in the French New Wave. Resnais returned with Last Year at Marienbad (1961). Emmanuelle Riva (For Sasha/Pour Sasha (1991)) returned in Le huitième jour (1960); Eiji Okada (Lady Snowblood/Shurayukihime (1973)) in Subarashiki musumetachi (1959). Hiroshima Mon Amour is certified fresh at 98 % with an 8.80/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
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