La jetée (1962)

User Rating:

8.3/10   

Director:

Chris Marker

Writer:

Chris Marker (screenplay)

Release Date:

March 1966 (UK)

Genre:

Short | Drama | Romance | Sci-Fi

Plot:

In a devastated Paris in the aftermath of WWIII, The few surviving humans begin researching time travel...

Plot Keywords:

Memory | Paris | Childhood | Childhood Memory | Time Travel

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Jean Négroni	...	Narrator (voice)
Hélène Chatelain	...	The Woman
Davos Hanich	...	The Man
Jacques Ledoux	...	The Experimenter
André Heinrich
Jacques Branchu
Pierre Joffroy
Étienne Becker
Philbert von Lifchitz
Ligia Branice	...	A woman from the future (as Ligia Borowczyk)
Janine Klein	...	A woman from the future
William Klein	...	A man from the future (as Bill Klein)
Germano Facetti		(as Germano Faccetti)

Directed by
Chris Marker

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Chris Marker		screenplay and dialogue

Produced by
Anatole Dauman	....	producer

Cinematography by
Jean Chiabaut
Chris Marker

Film Editing by
Jean Ravel

Sound Department
Antoine Bonfanti	....	sound editor
Antoine Bonfanti	....	sound re-recording mixer

Music Department
Trevor Duncan	....	composer: stock music

Production Companies

• Argos Films

Distributors

• Aurora (2006) (Brazil) (DVD)
• BijouFlix Releasing (2003) (USA) (DVD)
• BuyIndies.com Inc. (USA)
• Criterion Collection, The (2007) (USA) (DVD)
• Moore Video
• New Yorker Films (2003) (USA) (subtitled)
• Ripley's Home Video (2007) (Italy) (DVD) (boxed set)
• Sundance Channel (2003) (USA) (TV)

Special Effects

• DSA

Also Known As:

The Pier

Runtime:

28 min

Country:

France

Language:

French | German

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Singapore:PG | Argentina:Unrated | Finland:K-8 | UK:PG

Filming Locations:

Orly Airport, Orly, Val-de-Marne, France

Company:

Argos Films

Trivia:

Comprised entirely of still shot photography, except for a shot of the woman opening and blinking her eyes.

Quotes:

[last lines]
Narrator: He ran toward her. And when he recognized the man who'd trailed him from the camp, he realized there was no escape out of time, and that that moment he'd been granted to see as a child, and that had obsessed him forever after... was the moment of his own death.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

Brief moments, frozen in time

La Jettée (1962) is not only the most important work of science-fiction cinema since Fritz Lang's masterwork Metropolis (1927), but is also one of the most staggering achievements in the entire history of film. Here, filmmaker Chris Marker presents the audience with the ultimate cinematic dystopia; a futuristic, industrialised landscape of underground tunnels, colourless streets and jarring 60's architecture. The results are beautiful yet somewhat anachronistic, as the filmmaker employs a similar approach to that of Godard in Alphaville (1965) - or more recently, Winterbottom's Code 46 (2003) - albeit, with a less straightforward attitude to plot and ideology.

The basic narrative outline of the film is built around various reflective layers - similar to what Tarkovsky would use in his later film, Mirror (1975) - which allow Marker to create a certain feeling of mirroring between the notions of fact and fiction, life and death, reality and fantasy and so on. This, in turn, further develops the characters and the world of which they inhabit. The reason the film works without becoming a cold, lifeless lecture is because it anchors the images of nuclear holocaust and scientific exploration within humanistic characters and a sense of unashamed romanticism. But this is only one part of an elaborate puzzle; lest we forget that we are dealing with certain narrative paradoxes, not to mention an assortment of linear and non-linear story elements each unfolding simultaneously. Just when we think we've got the whole film worked out, our perspectives immediately change, and our ideas are lost in the blink of an eye.

However, aside from thematic visual palindromes, what is most remarkable about La Jettée - and the reason it has retained its reputation as a work of genius - is the way in which Marker manages to relate his story of travel and movement through the use of still images. By presenting these pictures to us in a sort of photo-montage - complete with brooding voice-over and various sound effects - the director somehow manages to bring the stillness of his film miraculously to life. It is, without question, a work of pure, unadulterated imagination, and a staggering testament to Marker's genius ability to convey a multitude of feelings, ideas and emotions, through a series of simple, static, though nonetheless, deeply evocative images.