''Hiroshima mon amour'' concerns a series of conversations (or one enormous conversation) over a 36-hour long period between a French actress (Emmanuelle Riva), referred to as ''Her'', and a Japanese architect (Eiji Okada), referred to as ''Him.'' They have had a brief relationship and are now separating. The two debate memory and forgetfulness as She prepares to depart, comparing failed relationships with the bombing of Hiroshima and the perspectives of people inside and outside the incidents. The early part of the film recounts, in the style of a documentary but narrated by the so far unidentified characters, the effects of the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6, 1945, in particular the loss of hair and the complete anonymity of the remains of some victims. He had been conscription into the Imperial Japanese Army, and his family was in Hiroshima on that day.