Sunday, March 2, 2014

Hiroshima, mon amour

A French actress (Emmanuelle Riva) shooting an anti-war film in Hiroshima has an affair with a local architect (Eiji Okada) and the two sustain a lengthy conversation which conjures up both memories of the bombing and, for her, those of her childhood and a disturbing incident during the German occupation. With its dreamlike, unrestricted narrative, Alain Resnais' Hiroshima, mon amour was an instrumental work that helped to break the mold of conventional filmmaking and usher in the French New Wave films of the 1960s. Written by Marguerite Duras, it features tremendous performances from Riva and Okada and stunningly bleak photography.