Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959)

Hiroshima Mon Amour is an acclaimed 1959 drama/romance film directed by French film director Alain Resnais, with a screenplay by Marguerite Duras. It is about a relationship between a French woman and a Japanese man. It was one of the first French New Wave films and made innovative use of flashbacks.

Synopsis

Hiroshima Mon Amour concerns the experiences of a French actress (Emmanuelle Riva), referred to as Elle (she), who performs the role of a nurse in a film being shot in post-war Hiroshima. She meets a Japanese architect (Eiji Okada), referred to as Lui (him) and, separated from their spouses, they become lovers. The early part of the film recounts, in the style of a documentary, but narrated by the so far completely unidentified characters, the effects of the Hiroshima bomb on August 6, 1945, in particular the loss of hair and the complete anonymity of the remains of some victims. The man had been conscripted into the Japanese army, and his family were in Hiroshima on that day.

Alice in Wonderland (1903)

The first-ever film version of Lewis Carroll's tale has recently been restored by the BFI National Archive from severely damaged materials. Made just 37 years after Lewis Carroll wrote his novel and eight years after the birth of cinema, the adaptation was directed by Cecil Hepworth and Percy Stow, and was based on Sir John Tenniel's original illustrations. In an act that was to echo more than 100 years later, Hepworth cast his wife as the Red Queen, and he himself appears as the Frog Footman. Even the Cheshire cat is played by a family pet.