- Oct 2020
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filmhistories.commons.gc.cuny.edu filmhistories.commons.gc.cuny.edu
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In the film Hiroshima Mon Amour we are shown some of the fallout from the bombing of Hiroshima, Japan during WW II. We not only see the human and physical carnage from the atomic bomb, we later see the affects of the war go far beyond physical but there are also emotional and psychological effects that are long lasting. The main female character tells us of her own suffering of falling in love with a man who was from the other side of the war. When she is discovered she is punished severely not only by the people of the town but her own parents. She has brought disgrace on her family and for this they cut off her hair and tell people they've sent her away but she is actually being hidden in a basement and it seems that she's being starved or mistreated. She's also fallen into a deep depression from the soldier's death . When she finally confesses this to the Japanese man she has started having an affair with. She loses her sanity a bit again. He slaps her dramatically and she is quickly brought back to reality in a bar. These two contrasting stories of the war in Europe as well as in Japan, speak to the ugliness of war. The Japanese man wasn't their when the bomb was dropped but his family was still affected. Perhaps the director is trying to teach us a lesson, that everyone involved in a war suffers in one way or another. You don't have to be physically affected by the war to experience trauma. The fallout of war can last a lifetime.
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