Hiroshima: Mon Amour

In Hiroshima, where a cupful of the sun burned out fifty thousand lives, a young French woman recoils from the horrors preserved in the city museum. But while her Japanese lover repeats to her, "You saw nothing in Hiroshima," she rebuffs his consolation. "Why denv the obvious necessity to remember?"

From the city of Nevers, France, she has come to the city symbolizing war's destruction. In a city which suffered as she did, the woman seeks to understand and end her own haunting pain. In Nevers, in 1944, her German lover was shot, and she was publicly humiliated for consorting with an enemy soldier. But unlike the city, she has not recovered; unlike the architect whom she takes for a lover, she has neither plan nor hope for the future.

Hiroshima, Mon Amour is a meeting of East and West, a document protesting war, and a carefully compassionate psychological study. Confusing, and sometimes hectic, it is also immensely impressive and moving. The New Wave film art, which it represents, expresses emotion in quick shots, jerky transitions, and skillful composition, which intensify individual scenes at the expense of untiy.

Alain Resnais' remarkable directing skill creates the sense of order despite a chaotic time-sequence; but the film remains confusing, particularly because the psychological nuances of the plot are even more important than the actual order of episodes. As in other New Wave films, motives are never clear; the power of individual scenes always suggests uniting logic without really convincing the viewer that the logic even exists. Emmanuelle Riva and Eija Okada act with such persuasive emotion that the film is unified by their mere presence.

The anti-war message is almost a backdrop; the meeting of East and West and accident. But the film clips of the bombing are so brutally horrible that only shock protects the viewer; the contrast between native and tourist is dramatic.

The Japanese, whose family died in the bombing, has come to terms with his past, and can love without bitterness. The French woman cannot surrender her dead lover, and is haunted by his spirit in each of her frequent affairs. She never discusses the German lover, even with her husband, and confiding in the Japanese is an overwhelming accomplishment finally made possibly by the tragic city of Hiroshima.

When she finally dismisses her Japanese lover, she tells him, "Your name is Hiroshima," and offers a spark of hope that the long journey from Nevers has finally ended.

In dealing with neurosis, Hiroshima, and war, Resnais risks uncontrolled sensationalism. But even when the visual element overwhelms the audience, the heroine sustains an integrity that holds the film in unified balance.

The lovers are never given names, and it is easy to complain that they are only blank symbols in a house of mirrors, and that Resnais has asked the audience to give his film meaning where none exists. It is a just complaint against most of the New Wave, but for those willing to make an effort, Hiroshima is the finest of its kind, and a masterpiece in its own right.