Directors: Alain Resnais

"- Hi-ro-shi-ma. Hiroshima. That is your name.
- Yes, that is my name. Your name is Ne-vers. Nevers in France."

HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR (1959)

Director: Alain Resnais
Country: France
Genre: Drama / Romance / War
Length: 90 minutes



Whereas in France back in the 50's and having its greatest peak in the 60's with films from highly recognized and talented directors such as Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut a cinema movement called The French New Wave was born, Alain Resnais took a completely different path. Hiroshima mon Amour is not only critically acclaimed and recognized because of being a classic and complex masterwork within the genre or because his complex narrative structure, but also because it established an important and notorious benchmark within French cinema, making a greater emphasis in the psychology of the characters which are found in rather pretentious environments. Another excellent example is the film that Resnais directed two years later, called L' Année dernière à Marienbad (1961), making a major analysis of the details of the small world that surrounded each character.

Hiroshima mon Amour is set in the Japan of 1959, where a French woman is filming a film about peace. One night, she meets a Japanese architect and has an intense affair with him for a whole night. Once these events conclude and once she has finally finished her job, he asks her so stay with him in Hiroshima because of his fear of not seeing her again. Hiroshima mon Amour got an Academy Award nomination for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen and was nominated for a Golden Palm in the Cannes Film Festival of 1959.

Alain Resnais stepped away from any possible cliché before actually finishing his film, which is among the most remarkable aspects that can be found in his style of direction and in his vision. It ain't surprising that in the first 15 minutes of the film the disasters that Japan went through at the end of World War II and the horrendous results that several populations had are shown in a documented style. In fact, Hiroshima mon Amour was planned as a documentary in the first place. Marguerite Duras had a pretty much heavy influence for constructing this gem and turning it into a feature film with a plot, creating one of the most beautiful scripts I have ever seen in my whole life. The power of words can really be very impressive, even in a movie.

The style of filmmaking that the introduction of the film had is very faithful to the filmic style of the documentary called Nuit et Brouillard, which was directed by Alain Resnais 5 years before and is one of the most important and powerful documentaries about the Holocaust, being filmed in Polish concentration camps. I agree with the fact that, somehow, adding documented sequences of real footage adds a lot of emotional weight to the atmosphere of the story. The art of creating these sequences comes from the care the director has with adding real footage and/or images and from noticing if these really fit in the story and the plot that you as a filmmaker are treating. Alain Resnais really hit the nail in this aspect.

The cinematography is really spectacular. There is not a more beautiful thing than appreciating a good cinematography that goes hand in hand with a director who has a well established vision behind a camera with a varied, epic and deep perspective about life and about how beautiful or devastating reality can sometimes be. This is definitely the director's most representative masterpiece even nowadays, being his last directed film Les Herbes Folles (2009). Although the edition is not a relevant element within the filmic style of this gorgeous golden jewel, the photography, the direction, the two leading performances, the screenplay and even the original musical score make up for it. Both performances by Emanuelle Riva as "Elle" and Eiji Okada as "Lui" are outstanding, each one of them focusing on their characters in the most possibly believable way.

The camera work is extremely beautiful. Besides the already mentioned cinematography, it is the camera work itself the one that transports us to the streets to Japan back in the 50's, moving along with such harmony and simplicity that it ends up being fascinating. Only a genius could have seen so much artistic beauty even in the cruelest and most depressing images, just like Pier Paolo Pasolini managed to do it in his film Salò, o le 120 Giornate di Sodoma (1975). Stepping away from the French New Wave, Alain Resnais is clearly influenced by the neorealism developed in Italy during postwar times thanks to giants of cinema such as Federico Fellini (La Strada [1954]), Vittorio de Sica (Ladri di Biciclette [1948]) and Roberto Rosellini (Roma, Città Aperta [1945]).

Finally, the time has arrived to start talking about what Hiroshima mon Amour really is:

The filmic beauty of Hiroshima mon Amour emanates from the fact that the film can be interpreted in almost any way; any theory one may have about what actually is being portrayed on the screen, or a simple version of a spectator about what is the real subject matter of the film, or a recount one may make of all of the events that took place in the film, can be either correct or put to discussion by anybody. More than just a film, Hiroshima mon Amour is a gorgeous piece of art.

Hiroshima mon Amour portrays, as far as my taste dictates me, two main tragedies: a global, wide tragedy and a personal tragedy. One of the main topics of Hiroshima mon Amour is catastrophe depicted at both levels. On one side, the internal tragedy of Elle is portrayed. She is a 32 year old woman lost in herself, a more seductive than a beautiful one, who feels an impulsive necessity of being totally dominated by his Japanese lover. This is most noticeable when she speaks the phrase: "Deform me to the point of ugliness". A sense of perdition, of an anxiety of surrendering to the emotional abandonment of her existence and of being completely conquered is present in her the whole time. The loss of her first lover, a German soldier she fell in love with back in World War II is the obvious ending of a stage of her life so she can start a new one. From all of this one can also come to the conclusion that all of what she says may not be entirely true, but she may not be completely lying either. What probably the film insinuates is that she wants to add extra drama or tragedy to the unpleasant (and somehow traumatizing) moments she once lived, or to the ones that had a bigger impact in her life.

On the other hand, we have the character of Lui, a Japanese engineer involved in politics who is around his forties. He is a man who doesn't entirely believe in romance or in love affairs, but definitely believes in opportunities. The opportunity of having an intense romance with Elle that is given to him is so strong, that he takes full advantage of it, discovering along the way that the emotions can lead anybody to an endless and unpredictable turmoil of unique consequences, and to a dependence towards our feelings that sometimes may lead to impulses that we as humans do not know how to control. He comes to a point where he creates such an obsession, that he blindly and desperately (without mentioning erroneously) discovers that she belongs in his life and discovers a new "meaning" of love, so he constantly follows our lost and confused female protagonist wherever she goes. He probably knows just as well as she does that such "relationship" can't fully work, but the anxiety that distinguishes their psychology for trying to find out where they may en up being once that they are controlled by such a unique and powerful thing that probably he never felt in his life before is so strong, that he is blinded from all possible rational perception and applies for a reality based on fantasy.

When both characters are together, they share and exploit a common characteristic: the desire of being completely conquered, not only romantically, but rather they prefer being dominated. Dialogues such as "You saw nothing at Hiroshima", in spite of the fact that she has actually been there, simply show that both characters want to hand themselves in oblivion, each one of them having their personal particular reasons which they don't really want to discover, nor precisely remember what actually happened during the war, what actually happened in Hiroshima, what actually happened in Nevers, what actually happened with their respective childhoods, and how their romantic relationships have been so far independently of the other person.

Just like Hiroshima mon Amour shows tragedy on different levels, the film shows two noticeable endings, very different between them, regarding the subject matter treated in the film. The first ending is shown once the first 15 minutes of the film have ran, which put together form one of the best scenes in movie history that I have ever seen: Hiroshima's reconstruction and the search of peace from the people, event in which is Elle is involved. It could be said that that's her excuse for being there. The second ending happens in the last scene of the film, where the most controversial dialogues are spoken: "Hi-ro-shi-ma. Hiroshima. That is your name." He responds "Yeah, that is my name. Your name is Ne-vers. Nevers in France". The symbolic-psychological context that these dialogues contain may lead us to think that both characters accept a new, fresh start, a new beginning, which is exactly the same process that Hiroshima is going through. It's like if the film went around in circles, reason why I think that Hiroshima mon Amour ends with the opening scene. That's why Alain Resnais assured that time in his film is shattered and randomly scattered throughout from beginning to end; it is not a chronological story.

The music employed in the film adds mysticism and an extraordinarily mysterious beauty. It is definitely the first film of this kind that Alain Resnais ever made. I dare to say that it has the most beautiful original musical score I have ever heard in a film, since it is perfectly related with catastrophe, peace, perdition, the emotions of the characters, with the beginning of a new life, with a lost love. The score is just outstanding. I recommend hearing it for the first time within the context of the film rather than listening to it separately, so in that way we can really understand the musical's score meaning. One can really be hypnotized and forgets about the rest of the world for a couple of minutes.

For all of the reasons above, Hiroshima mon Amour is more than just cinema. It is an artistic form of showing a reality that can even probably go beyond our own comprehension, and the complex range of emotions that distinguishes us as rational, romantic and cruel human beings. This is the most beautiful film ever made.

100/100

"Empty salons. Corridors. Salons. Doors. Doors. Salons. Empty chairs, deep armchairs, thick carpets. Heavy hangings. Stairs, steps. Steps, one after the other. Glass objects, objects still intact, empty glasses. A glass that falls, three, two, one, zero. Glass partition, letters."

L'ANNÉE DERNIÈRE À MARIENBAD (1961)

Director: Alain Resnais
Country: France
Genre: Drama / Romance
Length: 94 minutes



The filmic style of Alain Resnais had the remarkable talent of completely staying away from the revolutionary cinematic movement denominated French New Wave and had the guts of literally playing with cinema and modifying its usual structural grammar. With Hiroshima mon Amour (1959), film that counted with the unparalleled brilliant contribution of acclaimed novelist and screenwriter Marguerite Duras, Resnais could offer a different perspective of a non-linear and poetical storytelling never seen in cinema before. His next true masterpiece called L'Année Dernière à Marienbad allowed him to perfect his style, not exactly resorting to surrealism in its purest form, but rather introducing a hypnotic cinematic subjectivity dependent on the viewer's own interpretation of the dreamlike sequences and events. Consciously or not, directors that go from Stanley Kubrick to David Lynch have referenced either this masterpiece specifically or his overall direction style. L'Année Dernière à Marienbad is an influential triumph which greatness and talent depend on originality of storytelling and in an effective ambition displayed through a talented execution.

We are introduced for the first 10 minutes to a considerably luxurious and spacious hotel where several upper-class individuals wander through its corridors, salons and galleries, attend gatherings and dances, and discuss any issue that can come to mind. Suddenly, a married woman is starting to be stalked by a man who insists they had met before and had an affair in Marienbad, urging her to revive their lives and to run away with him. The film received an Academy Award nomination in 1963 for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen, losing it against the Italian comedy Divorzio all'Italiana (1961) directed by Pietro Germi, which is, of course, a blasphemy of a decision. On the other hand, Alain Resnais had won a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival two years before.

L'Année Dernière à Marienbad is, for a considerable percentage of the audience, the best film of the director. Although this is his second best and most overly ambitious project, the difference between the film and his previous masterpiece Hiroshima mon Amour (1959) is literally nil. Seemingly, the film improves the cinematographic technique first applied in Hiroshima mon Amour (1959), trying to poetically perfect it. The direction by Alain Resnais is overly ambitious, yet significantly attractive and though-provoking, successfully giving birth to a unique French work of art. The screenplay of this particular film is one of my favorites that have ever been created by human hands. The dialogue written by Alain Robbe-Grillet, who also shared his artistic particular vision designing the scenario of the feature film, reaches a level of perfection that had never been dreamed before. Repetition and exaggerated emphasis on the details become positive aspects for effectively serving the main purposes of L'Année Dernière à Marienbad. The final result of the screenplay is pure literary poetry painted in moving images. The photography is arguably the best technical aspect of the film. Multifaceted and talented cinematographer Sacha Vierny (Hiroshima mon Amour [1959], The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover [1989]) composes beautifully balanced shots, like the equilibrium that carries life itself. The imagery is astonishing, hypnotic, seductive, tranquil... the very mysteries of the mansion revealed; the gardens and fountains becoming live. The well-done performances have been submerged in the surrealism of the film. The music is astonishingly haunting, eerie and somewhat gothic. A soundtrack listing is not necessary, but just the notes expressing a governing dream state, seducing the mind and terrorizing it thoroughly, with the appropriate volume and unexpected interruptions.

The camera moves through each single corridor, gallery and European landscape in a marvelously peaceful, balanced and artistic way, counting with a deep voiceover. The voiceover comes from a man who is completely dependent of his memories and self-conviction, a passionate characteristic of his personality that applies to her possibly beloved woman. The woman represents the female figure whose mind can be utterly manipulated, the weak and innocent gorgeous female that succumbs to the vastness and complexity of the mind. A hotel that encapsulates several individuals may be the symbol of the human mind, the object that possesses a memory dependent on subjectivity. Memories possibly being distorted and modified in a dreamlike fashion mirrors how varied the perspective towards life itself can be. Constant déjà vus and dialogue repetition accompanied by a severely attention to detail explanation imply the lack of objectivity that should be applied to the film. There are no names, but just characters. The characters are the only ones that matter. Black and white contrast found and revealed emotions, and past romances may represent eternal and impossible longings of the heart. Lights and shadows fall in love with romance, and incoherent shadows on the ground confuse all possible and infinite versions of an impossible truth.

L'Année Dernière à Marienbad itself is a commentary on unfound passions and dreamed affairs based on imaged insincerities. No matter how evident the truth may seem, it is just impossible to discover. It is not meant to be discovered... perhaps not yet. The purpose of life comes along for itself, but not before the mind has acquired a certain level of maturity and self-acceptance; so do not certain epiphanies and realizations. The film suggests that dreams and memories are inexact replicas of reality and that have absurdity and surrealism as their main ingredients. Of course, no solid or clichéd conclusion was required, but just events and symbolisms. With a man whose conviction drives him to desperate measures for obtaining what it is already impossible to take back, a woman who uses her heart and the logic as her most powerful emotional weapons in case exterior events defy her psychological health, a mathematician and cold-blooded husband who demonstrates his talents through an ancient Chinese card/object game based on binary principles in a forced attempt to call for the attention of the world, endless rooms and corridors in a Baroque mansion, endless paths that may lead to one single end, interminable possibilities and a black-and-white world where light and darkness fight a passionate war, L'Année Dernière à Marienbad is an unequaled piece of work. Alain Resnais had an unlimited creativity and a big screen meant no physical obstacle for him. Shattering time to pieces and arranging them under the commands of the heart, and a realm where even the reason lives under the government of the emotions, it is a provocative journey into a romantic world of the ultimately unknown.

100/100