HIROSHIMA, MON AMOUR

She is a French actress in Hiroshima to make a film about peace. He is a Japanese architect. They meet in a cafe and have sex and they talk, about themselves and about the war but mostly about her experiences in the war. She tells him a story about loving a German soldier in Nevers and how that experience scarred her life. Alain Resnais' first feature film, "Hiroshima, Mon Amour" is one of the greatest debuts and one of the greatest love stories in all cinema. Choosing Hiroshima as the location for his love story, just over a decade after the dropping of the bomb, might seem tasteless to some but Resnais was the man who made "Night and Fog", his great documentary that showed the world the horrors of the concentration camps so there is no doubting his integrity. This is a film as much about memory and about guilt as it is about love. The players are the remarkable Emmanuelle Riva and Eiji Okada, (it's virtually a two-hander). The deeply felt script is by Marguerite Duras, Michio Takahashi and Sacha Vierny did the brilliant cinematography and the great score is by Georges Delerue and Giovanni Fusco. A masterpiece.