Hiroshima Mon Amour (1960)

The film opens with documentary-like footage of the aftermath of the Hiroshima bombings with a woman providing voice over of how she felt about her Hiroshima experiences. She's gently told that she has no personal experience of Hiroshima. When the speakers finally appear on-screen, we see that they are a French woman and a Japanese man and soon learn that they're at the end of what they supposed would be a one-night tryst. The story gets deeper and more meaningful as the minutes go by -- but it's so stylized that it's difficult to connect with the players.

I feel like I got it -- the woman has memories and shame she can't bear to remember and prefers an attempt at replacing them with false Hiroshima memories. The man feels guilt for escaping the bombings while his family suffered them. They provide a confessional relationship for each other, but the wounds are too deep for them to be salved over the course of a couple of days. But getting it isn't enough. I didn't feel what they felt. Their individual isolation was impenetrable. Which, come to think of it, is probably the point.

B-