Review of Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959) by Clara L — 13 Sep 2007

"Hiroshima Mon Amour" is one of the few films that I can say actually changed my life. I just watched it tonight, but already I understand and have faced one of my deepest fears: that of forgetting, forgetting things, forgetting places, forgetting love.

And this movie has taught me not to fear it, but to learn to live with it. Time is here, time does not move but in our minds, as past and present are never individual unities: they combine and reshape each other, redefining the "real" events we have experienced and making it impossible to take our whole life and analyze it.

Everything remains alive even when it's gone, for it subsists in our memory, which is impossible to share. She says she has seen and understood Hiroshima, almost felt it (through pictures, through monuments), but He could never express the extreme pain of the event itself, of the loss he had, of the destruction of mankind.

For in a sense, every war kills the whole of mankind every time. After war (during war also, for those that dare not to understand what is going on, like Her in her twenties, falling for a German) the world is forever uncertain, as is the pain we felt, the pain that we carry with ourselves, and the love the rest may offer us.

All that is certain is oblivion, the anihilation of love, harmony and happiness. All things must pass. Everything passes, time passes. All will crumble to dust and yet it shall remain, breathing, living in our confused and uncertain memories.

My name is San José, this is the setting of my tragedies, the place for my crying. It will also fade away someday, but did it ever exist? When I leave, it will remain intact. "Hiroshima Mon Amour" makes the world unbearable and endlessly fascinating at once.

A masterpiece of world cinema.