horoshima mon amour (french, 1959)

a french woman in hiroshima falls in love with a japanese man in an affair that lasts 24 hours. it seems to be heading for the inevitable end after 8 hours but the subsequent set of frames analyze the aloofness and the personal tragedy plaguing Elle. shot like visual poetry in b&w highlighting the loss in war because of the atomic bomb which acts like perfect backdrop to squeeze in the personal tragedy over tragedies of war. the cinematography and the 50s hiroshima nightlife and the psychoanalysis of the partners will linger. might have been an inspiration to modern films like lost in translation and before sunrise/sunset in terms of strangers meeting in a strange land. more so with lost in translation perhaps because of the personal lives of the characters being in shambles when they meet each other. on par with bergman and truffaut flicks of the heart and mind from this era, resnais adds one more. 8.5/10