Hiroshima, Mon Amour (1959)
Director: Alain Resnais
Screenwriter: Marguerite Duras
Historical context
This film began as a documentary project. At a certain point, however, Resnais decided that fiction would provide a better vehicle for the chronicling of the devastation of Hiroshima, which reaches far beyond the mere physical destruction wrought by the bomb on that one fateful August day. Resnais realized that it is impossible to truly capture the vastness of the bomb’s all-pervasive effects on the human race in a single film. What could be captured, however, was a story about two individuals, one Japanese and one French, in which the far-reaching effects of a wrenching, war-related trauma could be studied. For the Japanese architect, clearly, that trauma is the destruction of Hiroshima itself. But the French actress has her own trauma, vastly smaller in scale and yet just as emotionally debilitating, which echoes the unending pain of those directly touched by the tragedy of Hiroshima.
Narrative context
Hiroshima, Mon Amour does not unfold chronologically. How does this affect its presentation of exposition? Why do you suppose Resnais and Duras withhold key elements of the exposition until well into the film?
Why do you think Resnais chose to spend so much of the opening section of the film on what appears to be documentary footage?
What does the Japanese man mean when he tells her “you saw nothing in Hiroshima?”
Why is the Japanese man so intent on hearing the French woman’s story, and why is he so pleased to learn that no one else knows it?
Do you believe that the French woman is relating her story accurately?
In telling her story, why does the French woman slip into the second person instead of the third person, saying “you” instead of “he” in referring to her German lover?
At the end of the film, do you think the man and woman stay together or not?
Aesthetic context
Much of the film is built around repitition of one kind or another. Can you recall examples? What is the function of this repetition?
Some sections of dialogue are poetic and lyrical, while others are more prosaic. How does this affect the viewer’s perceptions?
How does the music score affect the viewer’s perceptions?
Does Resnais make use of the kind of foregrounded camera techniques for which other New Wave filmmakers such as Truffaut and Godard are known?
What specific elements of this film mark it as a product of the New Wave?
Rhetorical context
Does this film have anything to say about the meaning of the bombing of Hiroshima?
What does the film seek to communicate about the nature of memory?
