I want, very much, to be convinced by the more uplifting interpretations of "Hiroshima, Mon Amour"... Those that outline an optimistic view of the power of communication and the roseate prospects for mutual empathy. These are cogent points of view that are supported by filmic evidence, and yet I sense that there is something fundamentally unsatisfying about the conclusion that "Hiroshima, Mon Amour" is a mollifying agent in the dialogue on personal and historical memory.

Indeed, I view the gauzy, bittersweet quality of the film as a cinematic equivalent of the half-full/half-empty glass. It invites interpretation rather than dictating a single diapositive.

So I still propose that there is a note of profound lament and resignation conveyed throughout the film, particularly in the last scene of the film where they name, each the other, Hiroshima and Nevers. For Hiroshima, Nevers was a place and phenomenon that he sought to understand but, ultimately, it is as mysterious to him as Nevers the woman--aloof and elusive. Nevers, too, sought out the monuments and museums of Hiroshima (and even acted out the part of a nurse caught in the midst of the blast)--but ultimately, she understands nothing, as the man reassures her repeatedly. I believe that this reassurance is not a patronizing comment: rather, it points profoundly the fact that it is the time-dimension of the event that is important in his memory, rather than the space-dimension--and time passes, can never be reclaimed. That is to say, for both the man and the woman, what they really want to retain in their memory are the intimate details and the minute unfoldings of a past time: the day, the week, the month during which this memory was made (and the emotional immediacy experienced therein) is what they fear to forget. They dread to forget who they were during this specific point in the past, because the event was so formative and scarring that it would be act act of self-betrayal to forget. During moments that we have marked out as pivotal in our lives, we all promise ourselves that, no matter what happens, we'll remember this, because it's made us who we are. And what inevitably happens is that, as time passes inexorably away, an impenetrable distance comes between the us (in the now) and the us (in the past), and the fresh vivid sentiments of chagrin or anger cannot be become fainter and fainter. This process of disintegration is somewhat shameful, as we have failed our past selves and reneged on the promise we made ourselves.

We come to realize that the place, the physical space that supports the flow of time, is the only thing that remains. Thus the place becomes sacrosanct (Hiroshima mushroomed with museums commorating the city's sufferings, and Ground Zero becomes a place of remembrance) and we revisit it repeatedly, vainly trying to capture an experience that coincides spatially but not temporally. Collective memory resides in the spatial realm; individual memory sets itself up for the impossible task of preserving a bygone time. We can remember how significant the event to us, but never in the immediate and immersive way that we really want to.