Hiroshima mon amour (1959)

(Criterion Streaming, July 2020) I am not and will never be a big fan of Hiroshima mon amour, but I have to respect a film that blends interracial romance with meditations on the nuclear bomb. Director Alain Resnais being a sober filmmaker, this is a quiet, long-running romantic drama. While the obsession with nuclear holocaust may be a reminder of the multi-decade social trauma that cold war generations endured, it’s also used in mature, subtle ways to illustrate the ongoing love story. The romantic material is universal even if highly specific to late-1950s Japan, as a French actress and a Japanese architect go through the city (with the unescapable spectre of nuclear devastation) and have a few tiffs. Appealing leads (Emmanuelle Riva and Eiji Okada) do keep our attention during a film that’s deliberately long and moody. Interesting at times, interminable at others, Hiroshima mon amour nonetheless leaves a unique impression.