La Jetée (1962), Chris Marker

La Jetée is the story of a man held captive by rogue scientists in an enclave below a ruined Paris, post-World War III. The man is the only prisoner able to survive the rigors of a draconian kind of time travel procedure without succumbing to insanity or death. His captors exploit his visions of the idyllic pre-war past and the far future as tools to ensure their survival in the impoverished present. Through the experiments, the man finds solace in the blissful world he finds himself sharing with a woman whose image he remembers, an image which is later revealed to be tied to his ultimate fate.

La Jetée is a story told through voiceover narration, music, and still photography. Technically La Jetée can't be called a "motion picture" or even a "film", really, as the visuals are almost all still photographs, timed in succession. But it still feels every bit like a cinematic experience. As a time-based work, it is fluid. Each image has its own specific duration that is timed perfectly to the music and narration, so that rather than having the feeling of watching a slideshow, to me the images feel more like a wave of memories. It's a strange feeling, recognizing things as memories that aren't one's own.

I was initially drawn to La Jetée because it was mentioned in an article in British Journal of Photography ("Out of Time", Dec 2010) dealing with photography that attempts to break free from it's context of time and place. It is discussed how generally a large part of a photograph's content is it's connection to the moment in time when it was taken, acting as a point of reference to the past. La Jetée however uses the language of photography, traditionally seen as a documentative medium, blended with that of fiction film to create a hypothetical point in time. The time/place reference point of the image is shifted from our world to a fictional one.

This dynamic is even referenced indirectly in the narrative itself. Leaving behind the harsh reality of post-war imprisonment, the main character temporally journeys to a "dateless world" where he and his companion "have no memories, no plans... Time builds itself painlessly around them." This idyllic world is ambiguously referenced as "pre-war", but unfolds dreamlike for both the protagonist and the viewer. To me this timeless setting is analogous to the larger setting of the film itself, in which its photographs are defined not by the time and place in which they were taken but rather how they evoke the imagined space depicted.

Of course, that is not to say that La Jetée doesn't make reference to the world in which it was created. The early 1960s was a time when apocalyptic fears were at their height, and the film successfully conjures the cold threat of nuclear devastation. But the film isn't solely about nuclear war, but rather uses such themes as influences in constructing a moving narrative that moves beyond its time and place.

La Jetée is a type of work that I aspire to create. It's a type of work that takes influence from the world in which it is created, but through recombining and refraction, becomes a depiction of a place outside of our time. It transcends the limitations of its context, yet it still resonates with pertinence regardless of the time in which it is received.