Hiroshima Mon Amour was certainly not an easy film to digest. In this single film, Alain Resnais seems to be attempting to employ all the possible utilities of the medium at once. It tries to communicate many different things on many different levels, and I'm not sure it's possible for one person to comprehend all those things after only one viewing. Even after pondering the film for days, I'm not sure I grasped everything it was trying to express. The way Resnais blended a documentary style with narrative and something like stream of consciousness managed to create a strange, almost dream-like world. Still, even with the surrealistic tone, the film came across to me as more honest than any documentary could be towards what happened in Hiroshima - and the rest of the world - during World War II, the effects of which still very present at the time the film was made.
Resnais begins by shocking viewers with the true horror of Hiroshima after the bomb was dropped as two faceless bodies clutch each other. This documentary guise quickly falls away as the faces of our two main characters are revealed. On the surface, they are two individuals coping with troubled pasts in the midst of a troubled city. However, below the surface of this narrative rests a general metaphor for life and the suffering that results from what many consider to be human nature. As the story progresses, the characters become less and less important as individuals and more significant as representatives of anyone and everyone. In this same vein, Hiroshima and the horrors that occurred there act as an example of the sort of tragedy human beings bring upon themselves, drawing attention to the fact that we are the cause of our own suffering.
One theme which permeated the film was that of whether or not to forget. When tragedies and horrors like these occur, one might think that to forget would be the easiest way to heal. Perhaps that is the correct way to deal with the pain. However, that raises the question of whether we as a race can learn anything from these mistakes if we allow ourselves to forget. Indeed, one is left wondering if it is even possible to forget the pain caused by such decimation or if to forget is sometimes the only way to survive.
1 comment:
I wanted to say I totally agree - this film has so many meanings overlapping and enveloping one and other, I feel it is difficult for a person to fully grasp this movie without watching it 2 or 3 times, maybe even more. I had seen it once before about two years ago, but after watching it in class was seeing completely new things within the film.
I really think the film is incredible, a true work of art. Renais did a fantastic job with the mis en scene, and creating an environment fit to not necessarily trap, but encompass elle and lui as they fall in love, take in the present, look back on the past, and perhaps most importantly, hope for the future.
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