7.4 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
The film shows the bombing of Hiroshima and the horrific aftermath following the detonation of an atomic bomb on humans for the first time in history.
Starring: Eiji Okada, Yumeji Tsukioka, Yoshi Katô, Takashi Kanda, Isuzu YamadaForeign | 100% |
Drama | 50% |
War | 7% |
History | 1% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Japanese: LPCM 2.0 Mono
English
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
There are certain moments in various films that have become so iconic that they've almost become ingrained in a kind of collective unconscious appreciation of them, so that virtually anyone and everyone instantly recognizes them. A baby carriage careening out of control down some steps in Battleship Potemkin, a snowglobe tumbling to the ground along with a whispered "Rosebud" in Citizen Kane, the famous "match edit" in Lawrence of Arabia, or a cropduster chasing a hapless (if suave) man through a field in North by Northwest — these are just a few of countless examples that virtually any film fan will remember and relate to. But there are other, probably more personal, moments that every individual who has a love affair with the movies may have seared upon their unique memory. In that regard, a sequence which really disturbed me when I first saw it in my late teens and which has continued to be upsetting every time I've revisited the film, is a devastating series of images that unfold in Alain Resnais’ Hiroshima mon amour which document the horrifying injuries suffered by those who managed to survive the initial atomic blast that hit the Japanese city on August 6, 1945.
Hiroshima is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Academy, an imprint of Arrow Video, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.37:1. Arrow's insert booklet contains only the following fairly generic verbiage about the transfer:
Hiroshima is presented in its original 1.37:1 aspect ratio with mono audio. The High Definition master was provided by Raintrail Pictures.The back cover does also disclose that "this new High Definition presentation is the complete version, restoring the footage from the international edit that was released in the United States in 1955", a restoration which may account in part for the pretty heterogeneous appearance on display here. The element (or elements) utilized show pretty significant damage a lot of the time, to the point that some may feel my score of 3.5 is overly generous. There are numerous incidents of rather large and long lasting scratches, nicks, very rough looking optical dissolves as a rule rather than an exception, and even some jittery frames. There's also what looks like stock footage at times, which can be in seriously bad shape (especially when combined with optical dissolves), and there's also one very short snippet that is in pretty ragged shape that looks to me like it was culled from that same disturbing documentary imagery I found troubling in the Resnais film, in this case a scene of a little boy with a pretty nasty leg wound. But considering the fact that the film was evidently not curated very well, the sections here that look good, which admittedly can be "interstitial" in between more problematic moments, can look very good indeed, with nicely deep blacks, well modulated gray scale, and typically very precise looking fine detail. Even in some of the more badly damaged moments, grain resolves well and there are no compression anomalies even considering long scenes that have a lot of dust and debris from the explosion and its aftermath in the frame.
Hiroshima features an LPCM 2.0 Mono track in the original Japanese, with optional English subtitles. While obviously a product of its era, and occasionally subject to some momentary damage that is typically accompanied by similar problems simultaneously in the video department, this track delivers the film's dialogue without any major issues. Sound effects, as in the calamitous detonation, as well as the repeated use of music as both underscore and within the story itself, all sound fine, given the context of the track's era.
It's just one of those inexplicable coincidences that this film should have appeared in my queue the day before the 75th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, meaning that the writing of this review served as a remembrance of sorts for me on the actual day the bombing took place. One of the kind of interesting pieces of military memorabilia I inherited from my World War II veteran father was a set of preliminary plans for a "Normandy" like invasion of Japan from the sea, and I've long wondered what might have happened had that strategy been pursued rather than the devastation wrought by the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and then Nagasaki. Hiroshima is a fascinating historical document that should certainly be of interest for those who want to see a uniquely Japanese response to the bombing, especially within the context of 1953 shortly after the official American occupation had ended, and Japanese filmmakers perhaps felt more free to express some long repressed emotions. Technical merits have a few challenges here, but the historical importance of the film as well as some really well done supplements help to make up for that. Recommended.
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