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Almost a required viewing in film classes, Chris Marker's La Jetee is a short film that explores the idea of time travel and memory. Later remade into 12 Monkeys by Terry Gilliam, Marker's film was light years ahead of its time. It is often credited as the major influence on subsequent films about time travel, such as The Terminator films.

By only using still photographs, Marker makes La Jetee seem more like an essay than a film. However, from camera work to editing, the language of film is evident everywhere. Considered to be more of a visual artist rather than purely a filmmaker, Marker actually had a very interesting life. He started out as a writer; then turned his attention to documentary films. He was also a photographer, a poet, a journalist, a multimedia artist, and a world traveler.

In the film, World War III has destroyed Paris, and the post nculear war survivors do research on time travel in hope of sending someone back in time to prevent the war. The man chosen is a prisoner. His childhood memories of a woman he saw during a violent incident at the Orly Airport terminal is used as a trigger to send him back in time. He is sent back repeatedly and he gets to meet and speak with the woman from his memories . After many experiments, the experimenters decide to send him to the future, where he meets the people of the future who possess technology that could help his society. He is given a power unit that could save his people. Upon his return, he is no longer of use to his experiementers, and is to be executed. But the people of the future come to his rescue. When asked where in time he would like to escape to, he chooses to return to his childhood. When he is returned to his childhood, he finds himself at the Orly Airport terminal, and the violent incident that he witness was his own death as an adult.

In La Jetee, Instead of showing us 24 continuous photographs per second, Marker shows us only one per several seconds. That 1/50th of a second that would otherwise be insignificant becomes a moment of huge importance. That moment is frozen in time for us to live, to interpret, to feel or to analyze. We all have a mind of our own, and in subjects as grand and deep as time and memory, it is far more satisfying for the viewers to be stimulated rather than be told what to think. The plot of the film is only secondary to its idea.

That being said, La Jetee is not just a compilation of unrelated photographs. The photographs are connected, however sparsely, by the syntax of film. There is a shot of a girl looking one way and then followed by a point of view shot; there are action shots followed by reaction shots. It is basically a film connected entirely by jump shots. The film is made during the French New Wave period, and Marker is prominent member of that movement. It is clear to see the influence of his peers on this film and his on his peers' works.

Marker also uses a unique way of storytelling and that is the circular narration. Just as in Citizen Kane, or in some of Alain Resnais' films, we can watch La Jetee many times and still unsure of which scene follows which. While time flows in one direction in our physical world, and the human mind conditioned to accepting that fact, the world of cinema allows artists like Marker to freely explore the possibility of multi-dimensionalism and that he did. In La Jetee, we flow from one dimension to another. Although the logic is not without flaws, the film is short enough to us to ignore it.


Produced by: Anatole Dauman
Directed by Chris Marker
Written by Chris Marker
Original Score: Trevor Duncan
Cinematography: Chris Marker
Editing by: Jean Ravel
Cast:
Jean Negroni... Narrator (voice)
Helene Chatelain ... The Woman
Davos Hanich ... The Man
Jacques Ledoux ... The Experimenter

Release date: 1962
Country: France
Language: French
Runtime: 28 min

Awards: Prix Jean Vigo 1963 - Short Film