Hiroshima mon amour (1959)

The majority of the events in Alain Resnais' Hiroshima mon amour take place over the course of twenty four hours, but this isn't immediately clear. At first it looks like one has been forced into a nightmare. There are corpses, people suffering, and a city that has been destroyed.

Later on, the graphic images are gradually replaced with images of new statues and buildings. Now there are people walking, cars and buses passing by. The city has been rebuilt and the sky has cleared.

Eventually, a man and a woman making love slowly emerge in front of the camera. They look like lovers, but after a while it becomes obvious that they don't know much about each other. She (Emmanuelle Riva, Risky Business, Léon Morin, Priest) casually asks if the man is completely Japanese. He (Eiji Okada, Woman in the Dunes, The Face of Another) then asks if the woman's eyes are green. They are in a hotel room somewhere in Hiroshima.

She and He have a long conversation – both recall where they were when Hiroshima was destroyed. He was away, fighting the enemy, but his entire family was in Hiroshima. She was in her hometown of Nevers, where she had fallen in love with a handsome German soldier.

Before they leave the hotel room they arrange to see each other again, but both realize that their affair is coming to an end. In a few hours, She will have to board a plane to Paris while He will greet his wife back home. They both have cheated, but for the first time since Hiroshima was destroyed they've felt alive, needed, and wanted.

Hiroshima mon amour was initially intended to be a documentary, but after Alain Resnais refused to complete it as such novelist and screenwriter Marguerite Duras' transformed it into a romantic story.

The structure of the film is very unusual. Past and present frequently overlap and create a borderline surreal atmosphere with striking visual contrasts. For example, there are disturbing images of disfigured victims (taken from the Japanese reconstruction film Children of Hiroshima) that are inserted in elegantly lensed sequences with the naked bodies of the two lovers. The message behind these extreme contrasts is that as irremediable evil and self-destructive human beings may seem if given a chance and encouraged they can always rediscover love and their passion for life.

Despite the powerful images, however, the film is completely devoid of political statements. A few slogans are seen during a sequence from the Japanese film Riva's character was hired to do in Hiroshima, but there are no condemnations – and rightfully so. After the graphic prologue, any attempt to comprehend the actions or question the morality of those responsible for the destruction of Hiroshima would have almost immediately collapsed the film.

The film features footage lensed by two cinematographers, Sacha Vierny and Takahashi Michio, whose management of light, shadow, and space still feels strikingly modern.

The dark, quite melancholic soundtrack features beautiful piano pieces from two legendary composers: Georges Delerue (Contempt, The Conformist) and Giovanni Fusco (L'Avventura, L'Eclisse).