Language, Emotion, and Documentary

"H Story" is a film about film itself, which evidently intertwined with the 1959 shocking feature debut "Hiroshima Mon Amour" by Alain Resnais. The film tells the story of a film crew attempting to remake "Hiroshima Mon Amour," but encountering various difficulties. Director Nobuhiro Suwa appears briefly in the film, guiding actors and making on-set arrangements, thus consciously or unconsciously imprinting his mark as the "auteur" of the work.

European and American film critics perhaps noticed Nobuhiro Suwa's film style even earlier than their Japanese counterparts. After his student days, Suwa's films were highly favored at European film festivals. Esteemed publications like "Cahiers du Cinéma" often extended olive branches to Suwa with mentions in their annual top ten lists. He was dubbed "the most French-like Japanese director," not only due to collaborations with many French actors like Béatrice Dalle and Jean-Pierre Léaud but also because of the “French-New-Wave-alike” improvisation, freedom, and naturalism evident in his works, which were quite rare in mainstream Japanese cinema.

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Also rooted in improvisation , "H Story" unfolds a story of "lost speech." Béatrice, the lead actress in the remake of "Hiroshima Mon Amour," encounters significant language barriers. The linguistic gap leads to misunderstandings, hindering her ability to understand the director and crew's intentions and affecting her performance. She struggles to memorize the literary lines from the original script, leading to scenes like the one where she converses with the male lead in a small bar being shot from night to dawn. Frustrated and exhausted, Béatrice repeatedly attempts to flee the film set. Coincidentally, she ends up accompanying the writer Matsuda, sharing friendly silences, seemingly setting aside the language barrier.

However, once again, when the two visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, the state of "lost speech" returns. In the museum, as Béatrice aimlessly wanders, her position in fixed shots gradually distances from Matsuda. The space between them is initially divided by memorial sculptures in the two-dimensional plane, then distances widen in the three-dimensional space, with Béatrice becoming Matsuda's background. Subsequently, the shot reverses, capturing Béatrice's bewildered expression in close-up, becoming the classic moment immortalized on the movie poster—an utterly lost moment of “lost speech.”

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If the original work is understood as a story about "empathy"—empathizing with individuals as victims of war and cities as victims of war—then "H Story" expands "empathy" to a broader dimension based on rewriting the text. However, this empathy is highlighted by its "absence."

From a temporal and spatial perspective, the film raises questions about empathy between individuals and humanity. The reinterpretation of "Hiroshima Mon Amour" can be analogous to contemporary people's reflections and feelings about history—can contemporary people still empathize with those in history? Can people who are not part of another country's history empathize with the people of that country's history? Even more suggestive is the director's appearance. Nobuhiro Suwa himself is from Hiroshima, perhaps posing another "control variable" question: can contemporary people in their own country's history still empathize with those in history? Béatrice's inability to get into character on set may be the "lost speech" of today's generation, representing a lack of empathy to some extent. Thus, "H Story" excellently extends the original story, providing a retrospective look at past films and history within the context of today.

The title, "H Story", is quite interpretive. As a phrase, "H" clearly represents "Hiroshima". However, with a slight association, the title subtly implies the absence of "I" in "history", that is "me", a contemporary free agent—perhaps conveying a concern about the decline of empathy with historical memory.

From another perspective, the film presents a contemporary issue of cross-cultural communication, also the problem of empathy between two subjects. Even after the awkward atmosphere of visiting the museum together, the language barrier between Matsuda and Béatrice gradually eases in the latter half of the film. As they stroll through the streets of Hiroshima, play with a dog, and listen to a street band play, and finally embrace silently at the end, the language barrier is eventually obscured by these universal "languages"—love and music—and becomes somewhat elusive. Thus, the ending leaves a glimmer of hope for empathy.

The reflection on language and empathy evoked by "H Story" may also be understood as a reference to Nobuhiro Suwa' s own experiences. Suwa once lamented that, whether in France or Japan, he experienced a language barrier. As a foreigner not well-versed in French language and culture, working in France presented significant challenges. The only language of communication available to him in France was the language of film. Whereas in Japan, although language was not a barrier, due to his style being at odds with the mainstream, he rarely shared the joy of the language of film with others.

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As an auteur film, Nobuhiro Suwa' s experiences undoubtedly imbue the film with a documentary-like texture. "H Story" collages various techniques such as subtitle cards, photos, interviews, documentary clips, reenactments, etc., making it a form that lies between re-enactment, documentary, and fiction. Its opening shot is a still from "Hiroshima Mon Amour." This is followed by a close-up of lead actress Béatrice Dalle and Suwa himself, coaching Béatrice's performance through a translator. A scene is about to start, and after Béatrice strikes the scene board, the audience realizes it's the opening scene of "Hiroshima Mon Amour," where the female lead lays on the male lead and shares her impressions of Hiroshima. It's this "intermediary" form that gives the film a more authentic power in postmodern documentary filmmaking. "H Story" is a documentary that observes contemporary and historical relations, language, and emotions.

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13:26 03 August, 2024
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