Hiroshima, Mon Amour

This is a highly acclaimed 1959 drama from French director Alain Resnais. Its the story of a French woman, Elle (Emmanuelle Riva) and a Japanese man, Lui (Eiji Okada), who meet and have a brief love affair in Hiroshima. It left me a bit cold. The back story of the two characters is told through flashbacks to World War II. First of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, where Lui lost his family, and then in the small town of Nevers in France, where Elle had an affair with a young German soldier. The horrors of Hiroshima are brought to vivid life through old newsreel footage and we have great sympathy for the terrible suffering caused by this unprovoked American aggression (Oh no, wait a minute – who started the war again? Wasn’t it the Japanese who bombed Pearl Harbour? Hmmm.. ). Then the film turns its attention to poor Elle, whose young German boyfriend is mercilessly gunned down by the ruthless invading Allied forces and we weep great big soggy tears for her as her hair is shorn off and she is humiliated.... (Wait a minute, a crew cut seems like a fairly mild punishment for sleeping with a Nazi invader who would have happily machine gunned the entirely population of Nevers, had he been ordered to do so). So, you see, it’s a bit hard to work up a great deal of sympathy for these two characters , who now are indulging in an affair despite both being, by their own admission, happily married. However, a lack of sympathy with the main characters is not the main thing wrong with this movie. Its biggest fault is that it is trying far too hard to be “arty” and is steadily crushed under the weight of its own self-importance. The endless, circling and repetitive dialogue, becomes tiresome to the point where it becomes funny and elicits titters and at least one loud laugh from the audience. I’m sure the film is a meticulous construct of hidden meanings and dense symbolism, but frankly it is not worth the effort to unravel.

The Artist

One of the most unusual and entertaining films in many a year. The Artist is essentially a silent movie. Yes, no dialogue, no sound effects, only (very beautiful) music. Of course, there’s a bit more to it than that. The Artist knows it’s a silent movie in 2012 and plays with the audience, introducing snippets of sound, in a dream sequence and right at the end, to great effect. The story seems quite well known, that of a silent movie star found to be on the out when sound is first introduced. It’s a similar theme, of course, to the wonderful Singing In The Rain. This time the luckless star is male, George Valentin, played by French actor Jean Dujardin. Both he, and the lead female character, Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo) are delightful, so full of presence that you cannot take your eyes off them. The lack of colour (the film is, of course, in black and white) and dialogue, does nothing to stop them bringing the characters to full blooming life. In a world where there is such a dire lack of original ideas that we are about to grind our way through yet another Spiderman movie soon, The Artist is a very rare gem indeed. Its top of the pops in the current award season with six Oscar nominations. My money is on it taking Best Picture. I loved it. In that it’s another homage to the movies it makes a great companion piece to Hugo. Oh, and it made me seriously consider going out to get a Jack Russell pup.