"La Jetee" One of the Best Films You Ever See

Photography and filming have been working hand in hand in for over a century. They both deal with lighting, natural light, wardrobe, and many more. It is a great sight to see when they are put together. Chris Marker’s  La Jetée  is a film that only consists of still images coming together to create a well developed, philosophical, science fiction film. Marker tells a story that is set in Paris. It is destroyed after a third world war and survivors live underground, and living, are scientists trying to discover time travel by taking prisoners and conducting experiments mostly involving time travel. One man is forced to conduct an experiment that has him relive his old memories and go to the future.  The subject remembers a woman standing at an observation platform and someone dying. The experiment has him try to figure out what had happened. All this is shown with still images. La Jetee is a film that epitomizes avant-garde because the still images can still portray a well-developed story and film.

            The film does not need any video recordings for the viewer to understand everything that is going on in each sequence. The first scene with the narrator explaining what happened to the man at the platform is seen with a few images of the setting, and the people at the platform explains where we are and that a man has died. We then are enlightened about how Paris was destroyed. The images are displaying the destruction of buildings and homes and how desperate of a time it was for Parisians. The unsettling music, and the dissolves of each image clearly shows how unsettling the situation is and how Paris is destroyed and there are not many survivors because of how terrible the damage was to the city. When the scientist was explaining the experiment we see close-ups of the subject and the scientist. It is almost like we are watching the scene take place as a video recording because of how the narrator explains everything they are saying and how the two are placed. We can still clearly understand what is going on. When the experiment first starts we can see how subjective sound goes along with the still images of the subject resisting and feeling the effects of the experiment. Bordwell and Thompson explain, “Yet the film utilizes voice-over narration, music, and sound effects of a generally rapid, constantly accented rhythm” (283). While this scene was happening, we hear a heartbeat. The beat went along with the subject’s movement, and we can see how intense the experiment because of the scientist’s expression and the subject battling through it.

            During the experiment, we can see how trapped he was in his situation. The first sequence we see him with a woman he seems to be interested in. They walk around a park and romance blossoms. Each image we see them doing different things in the park, and we can see that the man really starting to like the woman. We see him staring at her while she is talking, and each scene they get closer and closer. At the end of this sequence we see the scientist looking over him, with the camera looking up at him suggesting that the subject is looking up at him. He is seen doing this many times but this part in particular shows how he is controlling his experiment and the subject’s whole situation he is in. We then are shown the woman in bed, sleeping. With many dissolves the sequence is shown very smoothly even with still images. Then we see the only actual video recording, the women blinks after she awakes from her sleep. And then at the end of this sequence we are shown the scientist again, looking down on the viewer but much closer. The scientist is becoming more powerful in his ability to control what is going on in the experiment. The fact that we do not see the subject in this sequence brings up some questions. Did the man and woman have sex; does the man want to be with the woman? The fact that the scientist controls the experiments, also relates to how the subject is trapped in this situation and he cannot get out of it because of the predicament he is in. We then see the man and woman in a museum of natural history. We see many different exhibits of animals trapped in this one place. The exhibits are put in this one place for consumer’s enjoyment. This relates to the subject himself because he is confined in this experiment, he cannot get out of it, and the scientist and the people helping him are there for the subject to take the experiment for themselves, and their own reasons for research. When he gets out of the experiment and eventually killed, we see him running towards the woman. We see him with a deep focus shot and far away from the camera, to show that he was being watched, which eventually led to him being shot. The eerie music in the background showed how powerful the shooting was because of how terrible his situation has become. Bordwell and Thompson further explain, “Despite the absence of movement, [La Jetée] doesn’t seem uncinematic, partly because it offers a dynamic interplay of audio-visual rhythms” (283). The peculiar music and how it went along with his running and getting shot really showed how well everything worked well not only in this scene but the whole film.

            This film had the ideas of still images and created a great way to make films that work well together. The experiment was an entrapment for the man in this film and we really could see how terrible his situation was even with still images. This film showed how you do not need to have actual video recordings to make a well-rounded film.