Best of 1950's

This movie drastically changed cinema history in 1958. It triggered 'La Nouvelle Vague' (author's theory, fast montage, more realism, filming on location, hand held camera's,...), it also contains my favorite film soundtrack (by Miles Davis). The shots of Paris at night are marvelous and the plot doesn't fail. Must see film-noir.

My favorite Fellini and one from his neo-realism days. As in La Strada, it is Fellini's wife Giuletta Masina who steals the show with her mimicker acting style. She plays a very naive woman who dreams of a better life but gets used by men all over again. And yet she stays optimistic, even if the odds are against her. A poignant and touching work.

What's more risky in film than showing a story of a poor father with his son hand in hand after steeling a bycicle? (Which is what De Sica did in his Bycicle Thief). A story of an old man with his little pathetic dog maybe? De Sica was not afraid to tackle it and he did it without getting sentimental. A touching masterpiece of Italian neo-realism.

Resnais' recurring themes surface here: 'memory', 'conscience', 'guilt', 'time' and 'space'. By using flashbacks to change cinema's concept of subjective time Resnais created a groundbreaking movie.

The opening of this film is special as well, showing images of the horror after the Hiroshima bomb and mixing them with beautiful extreme shot close-up photography of bodies in an intimate love scene.

But above all Resnais challenges us on the reliability of our memory. He would do the same in some of his other films; 'Muriel ou le temps d'un retour' or more recently in 'Smoking / No Smoking'.

Resnais likes to give social criticism as well and that's present here too. We follow the story of a French actress who starts a brief relationship with a Japanese architect in Japan. When they are together they examine past horrors that are shown in flashback: the architect about the Hiroshima bomb and the French woman (played by Emanuelle Riva) about things that happened to her in occupied France. We never hear their names as the Japanese architect is named 'Hiroshima' by his lover and Riva is called 'Nevers' (the city where she comes from). 'Nevers' mentions that she never wants to return to France but she eventually would since their relationship is doomed to fail.

Both charachters are forced to re-examine the effects of the horrors they experienced by reconstructing the past. In a way this is a very psychological, even Freudian movie. This puzzling film deserves more than one view.

This had me pinned in my chair. A nerve-wrecking twisted thriller with an ending that doesn't disappoint. Loved it all the way and I don't even like thrillers that much but this is not just a genre movie, it's a timeless classic made in 1955.