7 posts from February 2008

La Jetee

Chris Marker’s post-apocalyptic vignette unites 1960s sci-fi obsession with time traveling collusion – stylized moments of time in which black and white snapshots narrate the recollections and foresights of an unfortunate victim (played by Davos Hanich).  After the destruction of Paris during World War III, the survivors are forced to go underground, and into the future, provided by the torturous experimentations led by an anonymous man; his costume along with some severe lighting say very little of any possible positive points he may have, and we come to learn that he is an extreme antagonist.  While Hanich constricts in pain, we are given the impression that time travel is not impossible but painful.  His memories are correlated to a woman he once saw during an incident he witnessed on a boarding platform as a child, and he repeatedly encounters this woman, spending various instances with her in museum settings.  After being cast into the future and learning he has the tools to restart the demolished present, he is set aside to die by the experimenter.  However, he is called upon by the people of the future, marked by dark masses on their foreheads, to which they ask if he wishes to escape – to go back to the future so to speak.  After opting to return to his childhood, he turns into the victim of the incident at the airport, a stunning and frightening circle of events.  Marker plays on the notion of time expanded, but constructs memory through photography, vis-a-vis artifacts of memory in place of psychological recall.  What then is memory but fleeting imagery?