Alvin Case

19Oct10

Hiroshima, mon amour (1959)---it seems to retain the Chris Marker touch even after he handed it off. Exciting in a dull way; 'dull' can be riveting. And here's the way cinema is experienced in our time: As I watch it at a reasonable scale on the left side of my monitor, I study its locations via google maps, on my right---seeing that the Hotel Hiroshima is in fact the convention center near ground zero. Placing the Street Views feature on the map I am able to 'walk' to some of the perspectives experienced by the characters. What effect does this have on viewing a motion picture? I think that just as we do not experience the theater in a vacuum, we experience cinema within context of place and time as well as super informatics. To my mind, the hypertext version of Hiroshima Mon Amour (again reference to Marker) echos the fragmented narratives of our current audio-visual consumption habits. Eventually, I hope, someone daring enough and with the artist courage of Marguerite Duras will revisit the themes of this film in our Terror-obsessed age, without sentiment.