WWMM Special! Chris Marker's La Jetee


Even though the next movie screening is not for about two weeks, thanks to the wonderful internet everyone can watch from the comfort of their own home, or desk, or bed (how ever you do it). The movie below is a 1962 film by respected director Chris Marker. What separates this movie from the others is the technique Marker uses to communicate the post-nuclear/ time travel experimental story. The movie is comprised mostly of still photographs, each beautiful and without dialogue (besides some whispers of German). There is only one live action shot, can you spot it?

This movie is really worth watching so turn off the distractions, get a snack and enjoy this short but sweet movie!



Don't forget to tell what you think in in the comment box below!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Such an intense experience! The one thing I don't understand is the very ending (SPOILER ALERT) where he dies. Did the man from the camp use time travel to make the main character suffer? Anyone have an answer?

Wildwood Monday Movies said...

I found some sort of script online, and the explanation of the ending was this, "But first of all he looked for the woman's face, at the end of the jetty. He ran toward her. And when he recognized the man who had trailed him since the underground camp, he understood there was no way to escape Time, and that this moment he had been granted to watch as a child, which had never ceased to obsess him, was the moment of his own death."
for more go here http://www.godamongdirectors.com/scripts/lajette.shtml

Wildwood Monday Movies said...

Actually, this website explains the whole thing better than I ever could.
http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~tstronds/nostalghia.com/TheTopics/SacrificeJetee.html

Joe said...

I'm not sure I've got it, but it seemed to me that once he had fulfilled his purpose, they had planned to execute him-- and when the people from the future sent him back to his past, someone from the present followed him and killed him, which is what he saw when he was a boy.

When he saw the man with the goggles, from the camp, he realized that there was no way to stop what had already happened-- he watched himself die as a child, and then went through life, blindly leading himself to that very moment.

Joe said...

I also totally see bits of this in Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys-- a film I almost forgot about, but also a great movie.

Jacob Sisson said...

I met Chris Marker at his virtual art installation opening in the game "second life".
Pics!:
http://i408.photobucket.com/albums/pp170/jacobsisson/Picture22.png
http://i408.photobucket.com/albums/pp170/jacobsisson/Picture30.png

Apparently he doesn't let anybody photograph his face, and only socializes in the game. It was all really interesting through the eyes of a 250 pound flying black man with no pants. He liked my boogie dance but seemed uncomfortable when i was dancing in front of his face.