Beyond Hiroshima, Mon Amour: Highlights of The Cinematheque's celebration of French art film original Alain Resnais, to January 4
Seminal documentary Night and Fog, and sci-fi trip Je t’aime, je t’aime amid the offerings
Hiroshima, Mon Amour
Je t’aime, je t’aime
The Cinematheque presents Resnais 100 to January 4
THERE’S STILL ONE more chance to see Alain Resnais’s landmark achievement Hiroshima, Mon Amour on the big screen, on January 2 as part of The Cinematheque’s Resnais 100 celebration.
In luminous black and white, it uses dreamlike flashbacks and other time-shuffling artistry to tell a story of a love affair between a French actor (Emmanuelle Riva) and a married Japanese architect (Eiji Okada) in bomb-ravaged Hiroshima.
But there’s much more to explore in the programming in the series that celebrates the centenary of the modernist master, whose career extended over six incredible decades.
Don’t miss the Six Resnais Shorts screening a final time January 2: embedded in the mix is the director’s seminal 1955 Holocaust documentary—or, perhaps as some have called it, anti-documentary—Night and Fog. In its voice-over written by screenwriter and concentration camp survivor Jean Cayrol, it methodically lists Nazi extermination procedures while questioning the ability to describe the unthinkable in words or pictures—even as it asserts the necessity of remembering. It’s 32 unsettling minutes, juxtaposed on this program with equally form-pushing shorts about Guernica, Van Gogh, and Gauguin.
And amid other big draws like Muriel and the cinephile favourite Last Year at Marienbad, prepare for a real trip in Resnais’s 1968 sci-fi foray Je t’aime, je t’aime (December 30 and January 4). Resnais crafts a looping, haunting tale of romantic obsession, as a man takes part in a time-travel experiment—one enabled by what looks like a giant, groovy, bean-bag chair. But he gets trapped in the fragmented memories of a traumatic break-up.
There's much more to explore in Resnais's carefully crafted looks at memory and time; see the full remaining program, replete with new restorations, here.
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