Film Review - La Jetee

Fig 1. La Jetee poster (1962)

The film La Jetée (1962) by Chris Marker might seem uninteresting to begin with, along with making people question how you can clearly tell a story in that time, but the way that everything has been put together works beautifully and makes the viewer want to know how it all comes together along with how it ends.

The plot of the film tells the story of a man who as a boy sees a woman standing the jetty at an airport, it’s at that moment that he witnesses another man’s death which becomes etched into his mind and stays with him into adulthood. As the world falls into another World War the man is captured and used in experiments that uses his memory to push him into the past to meet the woman to see if it’s possible, after many trips to the past he is sent to the future to see if there is any hope for humanity. When he has fulfilled his task he is set back into the past one last time to meet the woman again at the jetty, however, it is at that point he realises that he is about to die and that his younger self will witness it forever locking himself in a never ending loop.

The story line used for the film has many elements that are now used a lot in science fiction movies nowadays such as traveling back in time to try and fix mistakes or to see if the world could carry on after a disaster. One of the most notable films that La Jetée has inspired is 12 Monkeys (1995) has the characters have a similar experience where they have an image from the past stuck in their mind.

The whole of the film is made up of black and white images with the plot being told through narration that give the story a type of photo album feel, this way of telling the story fits in with the theme of going back in time as we would normally look back at photos that we have taken and talk about what happened at that point. The use of the stills help to cut down on the running time and along with giving the illusion that we are skipping through the different time periods. “Chris Marker emphasizes the false perception of film movement by simply slowing down the pace of the still images.” (Ignoramous, s.d) Just by using the still images Marker lets the audience fill in the gaps of what is going on between the characters without even knowing that they are going it.

Fig 2. How the photos where put together in a storyboard (1962)

As there is no dialog between the characters, and if there is it the narrator telling us what is being said, the film relays on the music to help set the tone and to indicate the importance of the character. The music used seems to be able to portray the main two emotions of the film, hope for the future of the world and being with the women and despair as the main character can only speed a short time with the women along with death being the only thing that awaits him. “Fragments of symphonic music at once capture a love affair and underscore the tragedy awaiting it.” (Superior Viaduct, s.d) However, there is a moment of dialog, between the people who are conducting the experiments, but it is muffled whisper in another language which leaves the audience wondering what is being said and if it has anything to do with what will happen to the character.

Overall, when looking at La Jetée it can be seen as an experiment in itself as Chris Darke explains "Marker was constantly exploring the relationship between word and image, page and screen" (Darke, 2014). It could be said that Marker was trying to take story telling back to its earliest form by just have the basic facts left in while the listener imagines what each of the moments might look like in their mind, something that we once did with the stories we were told when at a very young age.

Illustrations

• Figure 1. La Jetee poster (1962) [Poster] At: https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/491314640568550046/ (Accessed on 11/01/17)
• Figure 2. How the photos where put together in a storyboard (1962) [Photo] At: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/apr/15/thrilling-prophetic-chris-marker-experimental-films (Accessed on 17/01/17)

Bibliography

• Ignoramous, Lamos. (s.d) Chris Marker’s La Jetee Analysis: Mortality and the illusion of Time At: http://filmslie.com/chris-marker-la-jetee-analysis-temporality/ (Accessed on 12/01/17)
• Sandhu, Sukhdev. (2014) “Thrilling and prophetic”: why film-maker Chris Marker’s radical images influenced so many artists At: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/apr/15/thrilling-prophetic-chris-marker-experimental-films (Accessed on 18/01/17)
• Superior Viaduct. (s.d) Chris Marker – La Jetee LP At: https://www.superiorviaduct.com/products/chris-marker-la-jetee-lp (Accessed on 16/01/17)