La jetée

This is one of the most stunning short films ever made. Marker has pieced together an oblique, sci-fi setting for marvelous still photography; when there is movement, it is a cause for joy! Everyone who is a cineast should see this film: it's that good and it's that important!

"La jetée" is a million years ahead of its time. To make a movie in 1962 about World War III, time traveling and a distant future that is still genuinely disturbing and not in the least outdated comes close to a miracle.

Here's a short synopsis of the story: After World War III Paris is lying in tatters. The earth has been contaminated and survivors of the war have to live underground imprisoned by the victorious nation (it's never said explicitly which nation that is, but they are talking German). Scientists are looking for a way to secure the survival of mankind by exploring the possibilities of time traveling. In the process one of the prisoners, who has a strong connection to the past because of a recurring dream of his childhood, serves as their guinea pig. As the experiments go on the time traveler falls in love with a woman from the past and comes face to face with the childhood memory he's been obsessed with all his life.

The story might have a familiar ring to you. It's basically the same story Terry Gilliam used in "12 Monkeys". But while "12 Monkeys" is a great movie, ultimately it will be "La jetée" that will stand the test of time (no pun intended). Director/screenwriter Chris Marker's approach is amazingly clever and effective. His movie is a sequence of beautiful black and white photographs with somebody narrating the story. The pictures and the perfect music make the whole thing seem like a documentary on World War II and give the movie a disturbingly realistic feel. Marker never makes the mistake to show too much. The destruction of Paris, the experiments and the future are all hinted at rather vaguely in the pictures and in the narration. A lot is left to our imagination and when The Man, as the main character is simply called, drifts through time it almost seems like a feverish dream to the viewer, too. What's more concrete is the relationship of The Man and The Woman and the contrast between the short untroubled moments The Man spends in the past and his enslavement in the present. Marker concentrates on those aspects and almost shrugs the time traveling off as a negligibility and the result is nothing short of amazing.

With its 26 minutes running time "La jetée" accomplishes more than some epic trilogies do. It remains a classy work of art that looks fresher than any other movie from the 60's that I've ever seen and in 50 years from now it will not have lost any of its appeal, either.

La Jettée (1962) is not only the most important work of science-fiction cinema since Fritz Lang's masterwork Metropolis (1927), but is also one of the most staggering achievements in the entire history of film. Here, filmmaker Chris Marker presents the audience with the ultimate cinematic dystopia; a futuristic, industrialised landscape of underground tunnels, colourless streets and jarring 60's architecture. The results are beautiful yet somewhat anachronistic, as the filmmaker employs a similar approach to that of Godard in Alphaville (1965) - or more recently, Winterbottom's Code 46 (2003) - albeit, with a less straightforward attitude to plot and ideology.

The basic narrative outline of the film is built around various reflective layers - similar to what Tarkovsky would use in his later film, Mirror (1975) - which allow Marker to create a certain feeling of mirroring between the notions of fact and fiction, life and death, reality and fantasy and so on. This, in turn, further develops the characters and the world of which they inhabit. The reason the film works without becoming a cold, lifeless lecture is because it anchors the images of nuclear holocaust and scientific exploration within humanistic characters and a sense of unashamed romanticism. But this is only one part of an elaborate puzzle; lest we forget that we are dealing with certain narrative paradoxes, not to mention an assortment of linear and non-linear story elements each unfolding simultaneously. Just when we think we've got the whole film worked out, our perspectives immediately change, and our ideas are lost in the blink of an eye.

However, aside from thematic visual palindromes, what is most remarkable about La Jettée - and the reason it has retained its reputation as a work of genius - is the way in which Marker manages to relate his story of travel and movement through the use of still images. By presenting these pictures to us in a sort of photo-montage - complete with brooding voice-over and various sound effects - the director somehow manages to bring the stillness of his film miraculously to life. It is, without question, a work of pure, unadulterated imagination, and a staggering testament to Marker's genius ability to convey a multitude of feelings, ideas and emotions, through a series of simple, static, though nonetheless, deeply evocative images.

In 1995, Terry Gilliam made one of the finest movies in the nineties: "Twelve Monkeys". To explain how he made this awesome movie, he openly declared that he drew his inspiration from a French short film: "La Jetée". It is true that the 2 opus have similarities: both present a devastated earth caused by man's madness, survivors who take refuge in underground rooms and try to improve their grueling living conditions and especially both feature a jaded and manipulated main character.

A short film that is a reflection about time, happiness and love, entirely composed of static shots, "la jetée" is a powerful and mesmerizing work and it may appear as a cornerstone in French cinema. 42 years after its release, it kept all its strength and has not aged a bit. The quality of the editing, the photography and the commentary add to the success of Chris Marker's work.

Highly recommended and the influence of Chris Marker's short film on "Twelve Monkeys" shows well a thing: French cinema inspired a great number of American movies.

As another reviewer said, this film is "timeless". Although it is from 1962, its story could be relevant in 1862 or 2062. The images presented show an apocalyptic world but also show happy images from another time. The story told is the main composition of this film and although it is short you become connected to the story as its eeriness makes the film unsettling at times.

Overall, its a great film and an amazing piece of art!