Ah, the French. So serious, so thoughtful, so poetic. Thank goodness! Hiroshima mon amour was such a treat. I would compare it to buying a box of really expensive, hand-made chocolates. You've been eating Hershey's up until then. You get the good stuff and you realize that you have been wasting your money on second rate chocolate. I've seen too many movies lately that were made for mass consumption...Transformers, Blades of Glory, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix to name just three. There are more, believe me.
This movie isn't for everyone. It's poetic, which may be a little dull. The story is of a woman who meets and man in Hiroshima. The movie covers their brief affair as well as some of the woman's past. At first, the setting doesn't seem to make sense. Why Hiroshima? Why not a more romantic location? The movie was made in 1959, so it it likely people watching the movie then would understand the connection between the love story and Hiroshima. I won't spell it out completely here, but just think of what happens in cities like Hiroshima after a war. It's fascinating to think about what stories people will tell about this war in 10 years from now. Think they'll make something intriguing. Nah. I'm gonna go with a series of action flicks or political thrillers. We need more of those, right? :-(
One last thing, you've probably seen one of Alain Resnais' films before. Probably in school as a kid. He directed Night and Fog, which examined Nazi concentration camps. I still can picture the ovens and piles of hair from that movie.