Welcome to the Panorama of the Mountains Blogging A to Z Challenge. This year I’m watching and reviewing movies from A-to-Z based on my ongoing Classic Movie Project. Most movies will be featured on one or more of three lists: AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movies (USA), The Sight & Sound Greatest Films of All Time (UK), and Cahiers du Cinéma Greatest Films of All Time (France). In some cases, I will be very creative in assigning a Classic Movie to a letter of the alphabet, and in a few cases the movie I watch will not be Classic Movies at all.
Title: Hiroshima, Mon Amour
Release Date: 10 June 1959
Director: Alain Resnais
Production Company: Argos Films | Como Films |
Daiei Studios | Pathé Entertainment | Pathé Overseas
Summary/Review:
Along with The 400 Blows and Breathless, this movie kickstarted the French New Wave. Director Alain Resnais previously made the Holocaust documentary Night and Fog, and this movie similarly pulls no punches in using archival footage depicting the horrors of the atomic bomb detonation in Hiroshima. The better part of the movie though focuses on a non-linear conversation between French Actress Elle (Emmanuelle Riva) and Japanese architect Lui (Eiji Okada) as the have a brief and passionate affair. Note that their names are French for “Her” and “Him.”
They talk about Hiroshima and the bomb, and they talk about their own experiences during the war (which includes many flashbacks to Elle’s family home in Nevers, France). The focus of the film is on memories and trying to remember while needing to forget. It is a bit on the talky side and a bit pretentious as well. I’m afraid it didn’t hold my attention all that well, but the lead actors are great and I liked the location work and the then innovative “flashes” of memory.
Rating: **1/2
Panorama of the Mountains 
A really informative film but not exactly entertainment. It’s not a movie I’d watch again.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Pretty much how I feel about it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I like the noir look to it, very arty. The shrill sounds not real thrilled with. Might be a good one to watch with the sound off.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’d give this film a go, and not only because Emmanuelle Riva is a total dreamboat. You’ve opened my eyes to a great deal more cinema than I’d been used to. Thanks for that.
LikeLike
Oh yes! She is quite easy on the eyes.
LikeLiked by 2 people
And I always had a crush on Grace Kelly, but I suspect there were droves who also did!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Talky. Sounds like the kind of film I would enjoy! Of course I’ve heard of it, but knew nothing about it. (And as I read each new post of yours on these classic films, I realize what how much of a film illiterate I am.) Thanks!
LikeLiked by 1 person