La Jetee/Sans Soleil

One of the most influential radical science-fiction films ever made and a mind-bending free-form travelogue La jet e (The Jetty) and Sans soleil (Sunless) couldn t seem more different yet they re the twin pillars of one of the most daring and uncompromising careers in cinema history. Chris Marker filmmaker poet novelist photographer editor and now videographer and digital multimedia artist has been challenging moviegoers philosophers and himself for years with his complex queries about time memory and the rapid advancement of life on this planet. These two films a tale of time travel told in still images and a journey to Africa and Japan remain his best-loved and most widely seen. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: SCI-FI/FANTASY Rating: UNRATED UPC: 715515023924 Manufacturer No: CC1694DVD Product Description

Chris Marker's visions

Chris Marker's short film La Jetee (1962) is a classic. It was later re-made by Terry Gilliam as 12 Monkeys, also a good movie but very different. The basic story is not entirely new to SF-readers: in a post atomic-war future some government (they speak german) make experiments in time travel. The protagonist manages to slip in and out of the past, before the war. It's better to see it than read the story - the strength of La Jetee is the imagery (still pictures) and the poetic feeling. Either you like it or you don't. This Criterion edition also includes Sans Soleil, a sort of travel film for the most part taking place in Japan. It's very unique, like a flow of images and narration that is almost hypnotizing. Some of the extras on the Criterion edition are just silly (the booklet and some pointless interview with filmmaker Jean-Pierre Gorin), and some is very good: I especially liked Luc Lagiers analysis of Hitchcock's Vertigo compared with La Jetee, fascinating! June 26, 2008

A wonderful trip

'Sans soleil' is a wonderful film that defies classification (beyond that of 'cult'). If you know anything about this quasi-documentary and the accompanying short, La jetee, (the two bookmark the beginning and the latter stages of a long career), then this review won't tell you anything new, but if you're half-interested/undecided, it might help. 'Sans soleil' takes the form of a letter presented in voice-over narration fashion, describing life in Tokyo, circa early 1980s. Tokyo is presented almost as an alien city, yet the viewer begins to be as fascinated with it as is the narrator. It's no exaggeration to say it's a kind of kaleidoscope or phatasmagoria of images and signs. Occasionally, there are flashes of life in Guinea-Bissau, to which Marker and the letter-reader cross-cut, though the point of which still somewhat escapes me. Tokyo, with its various media images from manga and horror films, seems to stand in for Japan as a whole, though the narrator does go on the odd excursion, for example to Hokkaido, and to a museum dedicated to male fertilty. There are some occasional scenes of extreme violence or just plainly disturbing images (even almost-subliminal out-takes from other films) taken from other media, but the whole is knitted together into an unlikely but rewarding patchwork. You couldn't get this much quality exposure to things Japanese if you watched Japanese TV or stood browsing in a Tokyo bookshop for two weeks non-stop, that's how rich it is. My favourite sequence deals with commuters going through Tokyo Station, ascending and descending stairs and, most especially, dozing off on an overground train. The film may have been shot in the eighties, but you could (if permitted) film identical scenes today). How Marker managed to film this and get permission I will never know (maybe he never did), because he superimposes very telling and sometimes horrifying and yet somehow everyday images onto these poor commuters in a way I find quite mesmerising. The sequence seems to visit and rummage around in the very pysche of what it's like to live, work, and travel in this incredibly busy city. The soundtrack is brilliantly spooky and and an essential part of the experience. 'La jetee' is an amazing science fiction film, though almost completely made up of still images, aside from one short sequence, that tells the story of a love affair that takes place at a time of Armageddon and dizzyingly backtracks to the events that led up to one event. It was the inspiration for Terry Gilliam's 'Twelve Monkeys'. Both films are beautifully narrated in French, but there is an optional English narration if you want to really concentrate on the ravishing images. There are some excellent extras, too, including experimental film-maker Gorin talking about Marker. January 2, 2008

Language and subtitles

Just in reply to the other user note about subtitles on the Criterion release: you can turn them off on the 'Languages' menu, it's just kind of awkward and counter-intuitive to figure out how to use the menu, and what 'SDH' means (subtitles for the deaf, I guess).

I do not speak French, and I can't imagine trying to follow anything as dense and philosophical as Sans Soleil via subtitles. The consensus among folks I've talked to who know both languages is that the performance of the English narration is very good. On the other hand, I first saw La Jettee in French with subtitles, and it was easy enough to follow. Hearing the film with English narration, I was greatly diasappointed, as the English narrator sounds bland and too casual for the story. Again, my multilingual acquaintances concur. So, for the best user experience IMHO, watch La Jettee with the French audio and subtitles, so you get the sense of texture from the French voice. It's been released on video before (e.g. in the 'Short' series), but this Criterion edition is the first one that will let you hear the French and get English subs... hooray Criterion! September 25, 2007

Two amazing films

Both La Jette and Sans Soleil are amazing and innovative films. The first one, La Jetee, way ahead of Ken Burns, by the sole use of black and white photography, camera panning and narration (except for a magical few seconds), manages to convey a futuristic story, part sci-fi, part romance, creepy, beautiful, with a condemming anti-war message. The photographs themselves, some of war-torn cityscapes, but most of them taken for the film, are stunning.
September 20, 2007

La Jetee: genius.

La Jetee (Chris Marker, 1962)

I'm not terribly sure what I can say about Chris Marker's La Jetee that hasn't been said by just about everyone else, so I'll keep this short. You probably already know this, but if you don't, it was the inspiration for David and Janet Peoples' screenplay for the Terry Gilliam film 12 Monkeys, rightly considered by the various-and-sundry on the IMDB message boards to be one of the top 250 movies of all time. (Interestingly, La Jetee has a slightly higher numerical rating; it lacks enough votes to secure a top-250 placing.) But where Gilliam molded the storyline into his most accessible (and commercially successful) film, Marker seemed to have no interest at all in making something accessible, or even likable; it's hard, in fact, to even call La Jetee a film, in the sense we know the word. That, of course, makes it all the more enchanting.

The story (if you haven't seen 12 Monkeys, a quick synopsis: a guy is sent through time in order to try and prevent the war that effectively ended civilization on Earth) is told, with one stunning exception, in a series of still images, over which there is narration. A story is being told, with accompanying pictures. The film, which clocks in at only twenty-eight minutes, barely draws the outline of this story, leaving the viewer to fill in as many of the blanks as he or she wishes. It's a bold move, and when it doesn't work, it's awful. Here, it works on every level it can.

If it were just that, it would be a good movie. Interesting. A nice idea with a cool experimental sheen to it. But Marker turns the whole structure on its head halfway through the movie with a scene that defines "minimalism," but within the context of what we've seen up to this point in the movie, it comes as a shock, an amazing revelation. I won't tell you what happens (other than to say it's a technical thing, not a plot point), because you should feel that shock for yourself the first time you see this movie. But what makes it great it's that it's not just an experimental quirk for the sake of being an experimental quirk. It takes all the notions you have conceived, consciously or not, about these two societies Marker has given us, and twists them around. I can't say any more about it without distorting the perceptions Marker goes to such pains to create; you just have to see it for yourself. And you should, because this is, quite simply, an amazing piece of work. And, really, if you can spare an hour and a half to watch the latest Adam Sandler vehicle, you can carve out half an hour to watch this, no? **** ½
September 17, 2007

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