This study questions the function of the tourist setting in relation to the theme of trauma associated with the experience of war. Through the consultation of discourse from multiple fields concerning ideas on tourism, movement, history, rites, and grief, it examines a corpus of films and texts by Alain Resnais and Marguerite Duras, produced in the two decades following the Second World War, that all feature tourist settings. Hiroshima mon amour, L’Année dernière à Marienbad, La Vie tranquille, Le Marin de Gibraltar, Les Petits Chevaux de Tarquinia, Les Chantiers, Dix heures et demie du soir en été reflect the social practice in France of holidays. We observe that, as presented in these works, the tourist setting, in isolating the characters from their day to day existence, serves to accentuate their struggles. The tourist site indeed provides for the characters a suspension in time and space, a rite of passage, a space for reflection and for the use of imagination. These elements combine to create an ideal setting in which the characters can confront trauma, grieve a loss and consolidate the story of their lives. The tourist site is therefore represented as a site of transformation.