La Jetee (Chris Marker, 1962)

Narrative

The film is set in a post-ww3 world in which he reminisces about his childhood when he first saw a man die, a woman which he still wonders if was real and the destruction caused by the war. Trapped underground, scientists attempt to send people back in time for resources to survive. Most go mad. But one man succeeds in going back, finding a woman who spends time with, drifting in and out of her life. He then travels into the future and receives a device powerful enough to put all of humanity back in motion and requests to travel back to his childhood memory of the woman standing at the end of the jetty at the airport before the war but is awaited by a man present in the underground camp who kills him, realising that the murder that plagued his memories as a child was actually his own.

Genre

This film is a drama/romance.

Cinematography

The film is comprised of a collection of still images that represent each part of the story as a moving image would, however, by using still images instead, the filmmaker has the creative freedom to focus more on specific details that contribute to the story and be more artistic.

Sound

Due to it being exclusively still images, narration is used to give context to the events that have occurred and propels the story forward.

Meaning and response

I thought that this film was really unique, especially for its time, where a concept such as travelling through time would have been an outrageous thought.

Due to the limitations of using still images, the filmmaker had to make sure that every still showed a specific emotion or event that the audience could engage with and they do so very well.

Representation

During the 1960’s tension was high in the world. The USA and Soviet Union had been against each other ever since WW2 and the Cold War had really began to heat up, especially in 1962, when in the year of the films release, Cuba was becoming a hotspot for conflict and the Cuban missile crisis bought all out war ever closer to becoming a reality. Paris is the central location of this film and France was a central location for WW1 and 2, so the thought of another war, with country destroying weaponry would have been a terrifying prospect for all, even for those who remained neutral throughout this period of time and so the film plays well on the fear of the masses.