Hiroshima Mon Amour

Bomb Rating: 

The back of the Criterion DVD case calls this Alain Renais film "a cornerstone of French cinema." If you ask me, the building must be crumbling.

The back of the Criterion DVD case calls this Alain Renais film "a cornerstone of French cinema." If you ask me, the building must be crumbling.

The first 20 minutes or so has a French woman and a Japanese guy lying in bed as the woman recounts her memory of Hiroshima and we see through documentary-like footage the post-atomic bomb suffering there. If I wanted to see a documentary on Hiroshima, I'd watch one.

The second act focuses more closely on the relationship between the two people as we discover that they're both married. There's a peculiar dance between them as we witness the typical power struggles that occur between lovers in such situations.

The final act revolves around memory again, but this time around the woman's memory of her first love, a German soldier during World War II. Naturally, this resulted in some ill-feeling among her fellow citizens and the woman was treated rather poorly. Among other things, she got her head shaved (which is when I finally figured out what was going on ONLY because I've seen "Band of Brothers").

I finally got this brilliant, profound, Pat Benatar-like message from the whole thing: Love is a battlefield. Brilliant, really.

To spread the word about this Hiroshima Mon Amour review on Twitter.