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The passing of time and lifes events have always posed man with deep questions. How do yesterdays moments help set what happens today, and how does the actual transition in time occur? Drawing lines between past, present and future help us to do this just as distinguishing between the individual and society makes us all different. These two separate examples merge together as life is a continuum rather than blocks of events, and individuals act separately from society, however, what each individual does on their own is what makes up society. In the end, all the actions we take personally and socially and the events that occur comprise our lives and fill the ongoing movement of time.
In the two films, Hiroshima Mon Amour and Before the Rain, we get a very good portrayal of these ideas. We see how events and decisions can alter lives over time, and how they can show repeated lessons and themes. We see how each individual part is a key to society and what happens on the global level is in part determined by the actions of individuals. Through the visual worlds and structures of experience in both of these films, we get two views of how the lifecycle passes with time, repeats itself, and puts each of us into our own place in society.
As is written on a wall in London in Before the Rain, Time never dies; the circle is not round. Both films start by establishing visual worlds to give us a context for each story. Hiroshima Mon Amour opens with a love scene between Elle, the Parisian actress who is in Hiroshima shooting a film about peace, and Lui, a Japanese architect who is rare in Japan in that he speaks French. We go from shots of them to shots of the city and the surrounding scenery. The camera pans over war imagery as well, which sets a tone for the movie. These visuals suggest the film will show us how symbolically the scenery and the war find some type of median.
During the camera shots, the viewer is engaged in a very repetitious dialogue of you saw nothing in Hiroshima, which is mentally captivating to us, but also very psychological to the characters. It also gives us a different time perspective to what we are seeing. Other background worlds we are shown in the film include Luis country house, the angular and light filled hotel Elle is staying in, shots of Nevers, the quaint French village Elle grew up in, and Elles past, various scenes of the streets at night and different locations the two move to, and images of water and rivers. All of the shots show the different aspect of their relationships and their lives. Emotionally and socially they all fit together.
The shots of the rivers are particularly humane and very important to the film. They show resources rivers provide man, represent the passing of time. It is also important to note that the visual scenery and overlying dialogue appear out of order in the film. It shows us how we deal with memories and forgetting and remembering. Time isnt show as a merely a linear phenomenon. We see this even more clearly in Before the Rain, in which three separate stories all separately affect one another and eventually, in the end, circle around and bring us back to the beginning.
We are started in the Albanian countryside at a monastery. Everything is open and bright, the sky is blue and the ocean is right below. The camera moves us into more personal shots that show us the lives of these monks. We see the old rustic location they live in and the farm work and prayer that consume their daily lives. By the second story we are moved onto the busy, crowded streets of London. Immediately the viewer notices cars and lots of people rushing about.
The light seems a blue-ish gray, and gives off a very city like feeling. Everyone is busy with work and making money. Through the transition though, it is interesting to see how life goes on just the same in another place and time. We see different lifestyles, but the same human choices we are all faced with. The film then transitions again back into the country, where it is as though we have traveled back in time chronologically. Again, time is not portrayed as linear in this film.
We see how the visual and background worlds reflect society and lifestyles, and how it all reflects this idea of the human lifecycle. As the story lines develop in the two films, they both establish the idea that there is some meaning and process to life. Through each, we see how single events move us through time piece by piece. The past affects the future, and the future affects how we look at the past.
In Hiroshima Mon Amour we follow the love affair between Elle and Lui. We see them caressing each other in bed, showering together and talking. As she gets wrapped up in her current passion, she begins to remember her love past. The film moves back and forth between her and Lui in Hiroshima and her telling him the story of her first love when she was younger. It is difficult for her because she is afraid of losing the memory. We are shown her experiences of meetings in the country, her boyfriends death and her going crazy as a result.
Through this struggle we see her deal with pain and confusion, much like we understand the feelings towards Hiroshima. There is also some ambivalence that she feels about the war. This is also seen in her attempts to move on with her own life. The relationship of her first love drives her in the feelings she has for Lui, as on one level she wants to go forward and experience love again, while looking back she feels she must move away from Lui because she has already experienced true love and does not want to taint the memory. On another level, the relationship between Elle and Lui has the social implications of a Japanese man and a French woman during the post Hiroshima era.
She tells him she feels indifferent about the bombings and that it scares her. This is much the way that she carries out her affair with Lui. It is not that she is indifferent, but that in each situation, she has feelings pulling her in both ways and its easier to let them cancel out and move forward. In terms of the war, she is a French person. Patriotically, she must respect an ally's decision to bomb an enemy. She is pulled towards home and her past.
As a human, however, she feels regret and fear about the terrible destruction caused. These feelings are something we all must face inside us. As for her relationship with Lui, she wants to love and accept him, and that is why she is drawn to him. She is unable to commit to him, however, and is just having fun. She is afraid that she will let go of her memories and not be true to herself and her love.
Again she is pulled toward home, and ends up torn between her past feelings and present ones. This struggle of is what progresses the story forward. In Before the Rain, Kiril, the young monk from the first story, sacrifices his life of commitment in true love. He decides it is most important to him to protect Zdrave, the Albanian girl. Having taken a vow of silence, he cannot talk in the film and must live deliberate...
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Research essay sample on Passing Of Time True Love
