Sans soleil

I must be brief. This documentary, which splices in cuts from Vertigo and from some guerrilla films, is definitely worth seeing. Though a student of French literature, and therefore habitually and terminally bored by pretentious studies of memory, this movie is remarkable in the way it makes connections across continents through the filmmaker's memory, extended as it is by the visual images he has stored on film. To put it disrespectfully, there is a lot of eye candy in this film, some of which is extremely beautiful ... the computer graphics towards the end might even remind Cocteau fans of some of scenes from Blood of a Poet (these, though, were what I found to be a bit over the top). So far I have only seen this film once, and so many of the memories that it prodded just three weeks ago have faded, like for example the name of the composer whose Bez Solntse inspired the title, and the documentary on volcanic activity I saw somewhere sometime which was echoed in the section filmed in Finland. In any case, this film will give you insight into the fascinating co-existence of traditional and modern culture in Japan. This struck home with me because I lived in Asia during the 80s when the technology of video-games, computers, and stereophonic luxe were exploding in the very same culture in which colorful Hindu and golden Buddhist temples w/ smoking incense, bird-singing contests and kite races were popular Sunday diversions from production. Bref, a fabulous film. As others have suggested, be prepared to suspend the Hollywood mindset for this treat.

Some interesting shots strung together with a pretentious, artsy narration that mimics profundity in a familiar jejeune style. Assumptions include that the east is superior to the west, television is bad, capitalism evil, etc. Sample insight: "Pac-man puts into true perspective the balance of power between the individual and the environment." With a different narration it could be a much better film. One key to its superficiality: the people are only seen, never heard. The narrator's voice covers all, like ketchup. Marker has a good eye, a good feel for faces and gestures, but a mushy brain. If you're a young aspiring artist in an MFA program who's attracted to "theory" the humorless self-importance of this film may appeal to you.

One of the most worthless things I've ever seen put on celluloid. I had previously tried to get through it twice and failed - finding it miserably tedious. The images were barely more than home movie quality, every sentiment was abysmally banal, and there was something me than faintly self-congratulatory about it all. What on earth can Marker's fans get out of this…? He seemed to think he was the first westerner to set foot in Asia - and with a camera too! He tried to invest everything he saw with such utter gravity and meaning, but fell head first into every clichéd image and hackneyed idea of Asia there is. I waited for something to grab me… some remarkable insight or pearl of wisdom… nothing… just a film-maker (a fairly amateurish one) desperate to film every little oddity, and when there are none, every little banality.

I knew this was going to be a hard ride, but I tried to shrug off any preconceptions and prejudices to give this another try. After only three minutes I had to hit the pause button. Later I tried again, a non-believer reading the Bible.

Bland images. This kind of thing needs-pictures like Baraka to at least provide some justification. Five minutes are spent watching a Japanese street carnival. Marker takes a fascination in people that comes across as simply naïve. He waxes philosophical about a man frying food on a hotplate, presumably because it's the first time he has seen it happening. A Japanese cameraman of equal naivety might well point his camera at a little old woman frying chips in a British chippie and call it meaningful. Thankfully, nobody ever did.

His camera craves little oddities, such as the temple of the beckoning cats, but it's no more than touristic innocence.

The observation that people ought to look in the camera is typical of the 'aren't I being meaningful by seeing something that no-one else can?' attitude. But by doing so they are not revealing themselves with curiosity, only hiding themselves with insecurity.

There are two ways of looking at every human emotion. A blithe side and a cynical side. Marker is full of the tourist's childish fascination in things he little understands, and which he photographs for precisely that reason. Every image is the gawping of an idiot - at the beginning we stare at people asleep on a ferry as if there is something unique and profound about this particular ferry this particular day.

Drawing filigree connections is his main past-time: Marker thinks it clever to move from formal stylised movements of a Japanese traditional dance to awkwardness.

He sets himself a challenge at the very beginning - how to follow an idyllic image of three Icelandic girls? Nothing works - certainly not the fighter plane he suggests. He gives us a long black pause instead. So, there's a game of meaning going on, couched in a game of imagery. Absolutely every piece of film here is the same.

The woman's deadpan voice-over constantly riles. She has the tone of Virginia Woolf reading her suicide note. She is narrating the traveller's letters. It's earnest, adulatory - and you never forget it is Marker talking about himself, massaging his own ego through a fantasy girlfriend because it conveniently avoids the too-blatant first person. There's something unpleasantly adolescent, almost JD Salingerish, about this trick, and I instinctively resist.

I felt like I was supposed to be impressed by the fact that Marker had travelled, had had reflections, that he was alive. It was not just self-congratulatory, but self-ratifying, self-aggrandizing; the immodesty of the adolescent that hasn't yet learned sophistication.

At the end of it he had shown me nothing about the world or about people. He had made mountains out of philosophical molehills and was dining off the tale.

I've only seen this film twice, both on the same day, nearly fifteen years ago; and yet its poetic-philosophical themes, its melancholy, its images still remain with me. Viewing it was an intensely personal experience; I find myself a little startled to find that other people have seen it. I find myself plagiarising it constantly; I think of it at odd times (when I accidentally catch someone's eyes and immediately look away; whenever I visit San Francisco); it is a work of lingering and subtle beauty that percolates through my bloodstream, informing the hours and days, changing the things and ways I see...

To call this film a documentary is to cheapen it. It's life on screen, not a mere document. It's poetry... and I'm not sure that word is adequate. How about your view of how you live and the world around you? Have you ever seen a film that gave you the questions to ask yourself? This film is startling... I can't praise it enough. My mind was exhausted by considering the layered imagery, both audio and visual, and the contextual shifts between them. How does anyone pick up a camera after seeing this? You might as well toss it in the trash because Marker has made Earth's last film.

It's a crime that this film is not available on VHS or DVD in the U.S. Fans of this film should also seek out "The Koumiko Mystery", another transcendant film by Chris Marker.