Sunday, December 21, 2008,7:39 PM
Hiroshima Mon Amour











I think this film is really amazing for two reasons. The first is fairly direct and formal, having to do with how Resnais takes what is essentially a piece of literature from Duras and makes it cinematic. Through the use of thoughtful cuts back and forth across time, with the sound from one time overlaid onto the images associated with another to blur and merge the different temporal points, Resnais gives life to what could have been a talky, pretentious disaster.
I think it is particularly difficult to make long monologues/dialogues cinematic, yet Resnais has done just this. His juxtaposition of horrifying images with sensual ones, transforms the film into something that draws you, inexorably.

The second reason is hard to describe. Hiroshima Mon Amour can still amaze, provoke and evoke because of the ambiguous connections Resnais/Duras make between remembering, forgetting, and forgiveness. The first two concepts/ideas are pretty clear and many others have written about them in connection with the film. Yet I feel forgiveness must also be there, floating in-between remembering and forgetting.

There seems to be a paradox in human existence for Resnais. How do we remember and forgive? How do we forget and go on without the risk of being caught in creating precisely the same horror we have resigned ourselves to forgive ?

This film cuts right to it because the most tender, caring emotions always seem to require an unforgivable act in order to come forth. Almost nihilist.

Duras has written, "Why deny the necessity of remembering?"
Yet this remembering obstructs forgiving, forgetting, living.

A bit of dialogue from the Hiroshima Mon Amour (Duras' script, translated by R. Seaver) however, puts a lot more into perspective.

She: It's sometimes necessary to keep from thinking about these difficulties the world makes. If we didn't we'd suffocate.

[Light goes out in the cafe. Both lower their eyes]

She: Go away, leave me

[He begins to leave, looks up at the sky]

He: It isn't daylight yet...

She: No [pause] Probably we'll die without ever seeing each other again.

He: Yes, probably. [pause] Unless, perhaps, someday, a war... [pause]

She: [ironically, smiling] Yes, a war...
 
posted by Still Waters
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Sunday, December 14, 2008,4:25 PM
Le temps passe, et chaque fois qu’il y a du temps passe, il y a quelque chose qui s’efface.
~ Jules Romain
French poet.

Roughly translated, it means -
Time passes, and every time, the time passes, there is something that fades.
 
posted by Still Waters
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Thursday, December 11, 2008,2:26 AM
You know that last magic hour at the end of a summer's day?
When the sun's so low it lays a thick blanket of golden light over everything..
and the air seems to shimmer with lightness...
...with life...
...with tranquil beauty...

That's how I'll remember that day.
And you.

Hope to lose myself for good
Hope to find me in the end
Not in me
In you.
 
posted by Still Waters
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Wednesday, December 03, 2008,8:02 PM
A haze of sleep and a shimmering blur
That rises like the summer heat
From the tarmac road
Distorting all that you see
All that you feel?
A path, haltingly etched out
In the fog
Shambling along,
Executing the routine extremely well,
Practised hand?

And night fell
In a haze of smoke and sleep worn eyes.
The perfect dive.
A body cutting through the air.
A gleaming arc.
And then the red.
And then the black.
And the quiet.


Water so warm that day
I counted out the waves
As they broke into surf
I smiled into the sun

The water so warm that day
I was counting out the waves
And I followed their short life
As they broke on the shoreline
I could see you
But I couldn't hear you

You were holding your hat in the breeze
Turning away from me
In this moment you were stolen
There's black across the sun
 
posted by Still Waters
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