54 years after its first release, Hiroshima mon amour has been completely restored in 4K resolution from the original camera negative and from a first-generation fine grain master, which was a long and complex process. We took particular care in keeping the film’s texture, the characteristics of which vary depending on whether the scenes were shot in Japan or in France, or what kind of film stock was edited in the original negative. The aim of the restoration was to rigorously respect the film’s original aesthetic qualities. Colour grading was supervised by Renato Berta, and was possible due to his experience as cinematographer and by constantly referring to a release print. The sound restoration followed Alain Resnais’ intentions, respecting the original densities as they were displayed in the release print. This also proved to be essential in this sphere of the restoration process.

Hiroshima mon amour isn’t like any standard film with the same photographic approach from beginning to end. The film’s narrative is perfectly linear but based on a non-continuity montage of temporal and geographical photography. […] The work I’ve done on this restoration has been an unusual and fascinating journey into the heart of the film. I’ve often felt as though I’ve had access to the most intimate dynamics of the different creators: the two chief cameramen, the actors, and of course, the film director. I hope I haven’t betrayed their intentions.

Renato Berta

Can you imagine Vélasquez having just finished his Meninas and meanwhile Picasso is creating his wonderful work? Of course not. But something similar is happening. With Hiroshima mon amour, Alain Resnais liberates the cinema from the 17^th Century, immersing it directly into the heart of the 20^th Century. […] It breaks the framework of traditional narrative and introduces the writing technique that Faulkner used: the characters’ past or the past in general comes back in flashes to the surface of the present and, at the same time, poisons it. On the other hand, by inserting the cinema into the cinema, Resnais does the same thing that Klossowski or Borges have done in their most recent literary work: he offers a secondary reflection; he invites us into a game of mirrors […]. A musicologist might even be able to find Stravinsky’s influence in the rhythm and editing of Hiroshima mon amour. Finally, from an artist’s point of view, this film is reminiscent of Cubism, Picasso and Braque.
Hiroshima mon amour is also modern in its script. It is the tragedy of the impossibility of union and self-completeness. It is the victory of the segmentation, disassociation and fragmentation. It is impossible to be totally one because we live in the moment and every instant condemns us to the birth, but also to the death, of a part of ourselves. Perhaps this is the profound symbol of the first image at the beginning of the film. Two people embracing are all that can be seen, they are difficult to make out as they are being covered by a rainfall of ash. It is possible to imagine that this ash is from the atomic bomb, or rather it is like the traces of a war that have an impact on the present and that contaminate it. However, I prefer to interpret it as the symbol of the dialectics of the moment: at the same time when these individuals “burn for one another” (as is said at a certain point in the script), they are already covered in the ashes from this fire, the ashes of oblivion.

Jean Douchet, Hiroshima mon amour, “Arts”, n. 727, June 17-23, 1959