Dime-Store Romance

Observations on Hiroshima Mon Amour by Alan Resnais

Cool typeface for credits
Female Voice Over - is the female active and the male passive? Possibly. The script was written by a woman (Marguerite Duras)
Intensive Match Action in Montage
Parallelism
Loss
War
Longing for peace
Mourning for the loved one
Memory and History
Personal and Collective
Identities become places
Suffering is indescribable

The story takes places in Hiroshima 14 years after WWII. A French actress has a one-night-stand with a Japanese Architect. He wants to see her again; she refuses. He insists and follows her. Her detachment becomes hysteria as she opens up by telling this perfect stranger about her first love. She wants to be loved again, but refuses human contact. He makes her confront the past. The parallels between her suffering and the collective suffering caused by the Atomic Bomb become one. Should she stay in Hiroshima?