as compared to Eternal Sunshine

Unfortunately, haven't seen Eternal Sunshine. Hiroshima is both visually beautiful and unbelievably horrifying (opening sequences of the human effects from the detonation of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima). It's not exactly about the nature of human memory but uses memory as a tool and reminder of what we forget. And what we could potentially forget from the horrifying story of Hiroshima and war seems to be as natural as how we forget our first or the most intense love in our lives. Time seems to diminish even the most traumatic and most intense experiences of our lives. These experiences we want to both forget and remember at the same time, creating internal and manifest conflicts in our psyches and lives. Without spoiling the film, watch for the parallel between the intense love, tragedy, emotional death/trauma of the woman in WWII and the story of Hiroshima. Because the film-makers are French for the most part, they really cannot tell the story of Hiroshima directly because they didn't experience or live through it themselves. The impossibility of relating to it is so extreme the best they can do is come up with the story of the French woman for the film. At first, Allan Resnais, the director, did not want to tackle this project along with many of the screenwriters that were suggested and asked. They all felt the enormity and impossibility of the task. To do a film about Hiroshima, you simply cannot f..k it up. So this film is really about sympathy and a very compassionate attempt at empathy and connection with the victims of Hiroshima by these film-makers, but in the end they themselves recognize it's impossible like the love between the two characters in the film, one of whom represent Nevers, France and the other Hiroshima. The film-makers can only allude to the magnitude of the horror of their subject matter. And they do this beautifully with poetry and humble compassion, giving what French film-makers understood best at that time, the nature and horror of human love and its loss. Because of the importance of remembering Hiroshima, the film-makers tried doing the impossible, and in my opinion, succeeded because in part, we all understand the nature of love and what it's like when love's impossible or lost irretrievably. Hiroshima Mon Amour is definitely worth seeing. And won't be easily forgotten.

Eternal Sunshine is my favourite film, but I wouldn't have compared it to Hiroshima Mon Amour. I can see why you might draw that comparison by reading the reviews of Hiroshima, but I didn't find Hiroshima nearly as visually stunning. Then again, I haven't watched Hiroshima in its entirity, just the key scenes I've been studying in class. I suppose, however, you could draw parallels between the love stories - her unforgettable lover whom she talks to through the Japanese man she's having an affair with, etc.

You'd really just have to watch it and make your own mind up about it, I think. :)

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