Spent the afternoon watching 3 Hiroshima-related films in a row. They are Alain Resnais's Hiroshima mon amour (1959), Yoshimura Kozaburo's Sono yo ha wasurenai (I won't forget that night; 1962), and Steven Okazaki's White Light/Black Rain (2005).
Watched in this order, they are all the more powerful. Resnais-Duras ask the question "est-ce racontable?" and although I have some criticism against the thematic construction of the film, the question itself is quite legitimate. How do we ever talk about the experience? Okazaki let people speak up, and to a very moving degree, succeeds.
Films this year:
44. Andy Byatt and Alastair Fothergill, Deep Blue (2004?)
45. Kozaburo Yoshimura, I Won't Forget the Night (1962)
44 is curiously recomforting. Come what may, and after the great extinction of the life on the surface, those who live deep in the ocean will survive as if nothing happened. They don't even need sunlight! That beats me.
45 is memorable for the final scene where Jiro Tamiya weeps in the river.
