La Jetée is like a message from another time and place.

No Bruce Willis though.

Ant
Ant
Aug 22, 2017 · 3 min read

This is a movie which, unbelievably, I haven’t seen until now. Of course I’ve seen 12 Monkeys plenty, but that was when I was younger, and a French film made up of still images probably sounded a bit too obtuse to me back then. Now it’s finally appeared on Mubi and I jumped at the opportunity to watch this remarkable film.

La Jetée is a 1962 post-apocalyptic sci-fi French film directed by Chris Marker. It tells the story of a man, who is a prisoner in post-apocalyptic Paris. The remnants of humanity live underground, away from the nuclear fallout and otherwise inhospitable surface. The underground is ruled by scientists who are experimenting with time travel. They want to send someone to find food, medicine, and energy in the past or present to save present-day humanity.

But most human minds can’t handle the journey. Only a person with a strong anchor to a different time, like a powerful memory, can make the trip. The main character has been having recurring dreams about a moment pre-war for years. It’s of when he was a child, at the end of a viewing platform at an airport. He sees a woman, and a man dying. This is a strong enough memory to send the man back. He finds the woman, falls in love, but will he accomplish his mission?

In the future, all technology is made of maxi-pads. What a horrible dystopia we have waiting for us.

I wasn’t sure exactly how they’d do it. For years, I’ve imagined the film as basically a slideshow with music backing it, with the actual plot kept ambiguous. Of course, it’s all done through a voiceover. Which manages to both carry the plot and stay out of the way of it. It reminds me a bit of the more understated French spoken word works of Serge Gainsbourg. Where everything is quite matter-of-fact. The voice isn’t trying too hard, it just lets the content of what’s being said speak for itself.

It’s surprising how much from the film translates well to 12 Monkeys. Yes, the overarching plot. But even smaller things like the look of the underground, and its inhabitants, where the futuristic equipment feels cobbled together from scraps in a specific way that hasn’t really been seen before or since. The closest I can think of is the style of Metro 2033.

One big difference is that the goal of the time travel in La Jetée is sadder and more melancholy than in 12 Monkeys. Rather than a plot to help prevent WWIII, they’re just looking for food, medicine, and energy to keep humanity going.

It’s also, surprisingly, a lot more pulpy and sci-fi in some ways. The main character of La Jetée doesn’t just travel to the past — he travels to the future as well, and meets a bunch of future-humans right out of This Island Earth.

What I loved about the movie the most is that the “still photo” conceit isn’t just a gimmick, or a way to make a movie on the cheap. It ties into the themes. The man has an image in his head of a woman. A still frame, a moment in time. When you take a photo of a moment in your life, eventually everything else from that moment drops away apart from the still image. That becomes all that’s left — you can’t ever get back to that memory.

I’m really happy to have finally seen La Jetée — it’s even better than I imagined it to be.

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Ant

Written by

Ant

Every Day Is Movies

I watch a movie every day in 2017, then write about each one. It seems like a good idea here in 2016.

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