La Jetee/Sans Soleil (Criterion Collection)
by Chris Marker
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Actor: ?tienne Becker, Arielle Dombasle, Charlotte Kerr, Florence Delay, Riyoko IkedaDirector: Chris Marker
Brand: IMAGE ENT.
Cinematographer: Chris Marker
Editor: Chris Marker
Writer: Chris Marker
Cinematographer: Jean Chiabaut
Editor: Jean Ravel
Producer: Anatole Dauman
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; German (Original Language); Japanese (Original Language); English (Subtitled)
Format: Black & White, Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 130 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-06-26
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Criterion Collection
Product features:
- One of the most influential, radical science-fiction films ever made and a mind-bending free-form travelogue, La jet e (The Jetty) and Sans soleil (Sunless) couldn t seem more different yet they re the twin pillars of one of the most daring and uncompromising careers in cinema history. Chris Marker, filmmaker, poet, novelist, photographer, editor, and now videographer and digital multimedia artist
DVD Reviews of La Jetee/Sans Soleil (Criterion Collection)
DVD Review: La Jet
Summary: 4 Stars
La Jetee
Beautiful movie. Everything seems so timeless... you would never pinpoint it to be filmed (using all Man Ray photos) in 1923.
A good thing to say about La Jetee is that it inspired Solyaris (1972).
DVD Review: Excellent
Summary: 5 Stars
Whereas La Jetee depends on the conceit of believing the time travel scenario, and identifying so emotionally with the man that the obvious end seems startling, Sans Soleil ends dependent upon the conceit that so much information about the travels of Krasna has so overwhelmed the viewer, and so lulled him with its rhythmic pacing, that the viewer doubts there can be an end to the film, for Krasna is a character so filled with literal self-conceit it is akin to having an inner seat inside the brain of a man who simply loves the sound of his voice, no matter what nonsense it spews. Thus, when an end does come, it seems abrupt. The interesting thing is that while, stylistically, and innovatively, the later film's ending is far more daring, it simply does not affect the viewer the way the more expected ending of La Jetee does, because there is simply no attempt made to build empathy for Krasna, as there is with the man of the earlier film, nor is there any attempt to make Sans Soleil an emotional work of any kind. From the distancing images of the Icelandic children that open and close the film, to the images from The Zone, this film is detached from reality and emotion. It is also even more explicitly a film about perception, not memory, than La Jetee is.
The DVD, put out by The Criterion Collection, is one of its best offerings, even if neither film comes with an audio commentary. Both films are shown in 1.66: aspect ratios. The extra features for La Jetee include video interviews with filmmaker Jean-Pierre Gorin, a bit of an odd duck, whose small filmic rhapsodies on Marker are a bit too much, in the masturbatory sense. Then there is Chris On Chris, a video on Marker by filmmaker Chris Darke. It's more interesting than Gorin's hyperbolic reactions, but then we get some film clips from a filmmaker who idolizes Marker, and it is so inferior to Marker's work that one can only be thankful the guy gets only a minute or two in the sun. Then there are two excerpts from the French tv series Court-Circuit (Le Magazine). On is a take on David Bowie's music video Jump They Say, reputedly inspired by La Jet?e; and the other a delightfully silly homage to Marker's influence by Hitchcock's Vertigo, because it posits that Marker's La Jetee is really about the man traveling in to Vertigo. Naturally, there is not a whit of logic nor proof behind the claim. The extra for Sans Soleil is a seventeen minute interview with Gorin, again. In this extended segment he comes off a bit more knowledgeable than in the deliberately coy smaller excerpts for La Jetee. The musical scoring for both films is very good, with wistful music often acting as the mortar between images in La Jetee, when the images are static and sans narration. All the visuals and editing were done by Marker, and he proves masterful at both.
As these two films are Marker's best known works, and considered his best, one wonders if this is a critical misinterpretation, or apt. Naturally, I'll decide when I see other films of his. That stated, it bears repeating that these films, despite many claims by critics notorious for the tack of critical cribbing, are definitely not about memory. They will use some mnemonic devices, but they are about perception; and there is a difference. Perception is memory in the moment, in the now, whereas memory is perception of the now's shadow, the moment's shadow. Therefore they scan two different beats. One is the thing as it is, and the other a recreation of what seems to be the thing as it was. Memory is always an act of creation, or re-creation, which takes talent and skill to effectively convey. Perception just takes good senses. Perception requires attention. Memory does not. It requires concentration. And, as great as the purely cinematic elements are, as I've shown, both La Jetee and Sans Soleil would be vastly different and inferior films without the narration that sutures word to image, and both to a whole. These films are essential works of art from the 20th Century, and will likely have impacts that reach far into the future, long after much more celebrated works and artists have been forgotten.
Strike memory!
DVD Review: Two very `different' yet spectacular films you don't see the likes of every day...
Summary: 5 Stars
I wish I could review these separately, but whatever. I guess it's a really good thing that I love both of them and would give both of them A's anyways. I do not love them equally, so I'll start with the one I prefer.
La Jetee.
I will say this first; I am not really one who is overly excited about science fiction films. I mean, yeah, I like them enough, but for the most part I find them uninspired and kind of forgettable. There are a few exceptions (`Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' effortlessly meshes so many genres together in a unique and very rewarding way) but for the most part science fiction is often reserved for the summer Hollywood blockbusters that make a lot of money, fill a lot of seats, but rely so heavily on special effects that the storylines and plot points are disregarded altogether.
They are mindless.
What makes `La Jetee' so special is that it ditches the special effects for a rich story and unique vision. Chris Marker (who made his name in documentaries, which says a lot for the direction this film takes) uses still images (yes, this is NOT a live action film) to tell the story of Parisian survivors of a disaster that forced them underground. When they begin to tamper with time travel they uncover a story of one man's life that is intriguing and astonishing to behold.
I can't say more than that for fear I'll ruin the whole thing.
The film is short yet it packs a nice punch, and the still imagery says more than any live action could. It carries an air of coldness to it, but that helps with the films lingering aftereffects. It may not sound off the bat to be something you'd readily find entertaining, but I urge you to give it a try.
And that brings us to the second film provided on this DVD.
Sans Soleil.
Now, I prefer `La Jetee' mainly because it is so unique in its approach, but if I'm completely honest with myself `Sans Soleil' is probably the better film, for it has a lot to say and it says it in such a thought provoking manner. Told much like a documentary would be told, a man's collection of vacation videos are narrated by a female friend whom he has written to and confided in. As he travels the globe she recounts his experiences and his intimate thoughts on life, humanity, time, memory and much more. So, like `La Jetee', this is not your typical film. It is told in random film clips, but it is ravishing in its intellectual look at human understanding.
Again, to say more would be a crime against the next viewer.
So, neither of these films may be pictures you would have sought out on your own, but hopefully this review will inspire you to try something new. Even if you are not as enthusiastic about these films as I am, you can at least say that you expanded your horizons with something unique and undeniably special.
DVD Review: Chris Marker's visions
Summary: 5 Stars
Chris Marker's short film La Jetee (1962) is a classic. It was later re-made by Terry Gilliam as 12 Monkeys, also a good movie but very different. The basic story is not entirely new to SF-readers: in a post atomic-war future some government (they speak german) make experiments in time travel. The protagonist manages to slip in and out of the past, before the war. It's better to see it than read the story - the strength of La Jetee is the imagery (still pictures) and the poetic feeling. Either you like it or you don't. This Criterion edition also includes Sans Soleil, a sort of travel film for the most part taking place in Japan. It's very unique, like a flow of images and narration that is almost hypnotizing. Some of the extras on the Criterion edition are just silly (the booklet and some pointless interview with filmmaker Jean-Pierre Gorin), and some is very good: I especially liked Luc Lagiers analysis of Hitchcock's Vertigo compared with La Jetee, fascinating!DVD Review: A wonderful trip
Summary: 5 Stars
'Sans soleil' is a wonderful film that defies classification (beyond that of 'cult'). If you know anything about this quasi-documentary and the accompanying short, La jetee, (the two bookmark the beginning and the latter stages of a long career), then this review won't tell you anything new, but if you're half-interested/undecided, it might help. 'Sans soleil' takes the form of a letter presented in voice-over narration fashion, describing life in Tokyo, circa early 1980s. Tokyo is presented almost as an alien city, yet the viewer begins to be as fascinated with it as is the narrator. It's no exaggeration to say it's a kind of kaleidoscope or phatasmagoria of images and signs. Occasionally, there are flashes of life in Guinea-Bissau, to which Marker and the letter-reader cross-cut, though the point of which still somewhat escapes me. Tokyo, with its various media images from manga and horror films, seems to stand in for Japan as a whole, though the narrator does go on the odd excursion, for example to Hokkaido, and to a museum dedicated to male fertilty. There are some occasional scenes of extreme violence or just plainly disturbing images (even almost-subliminal out-takes from other films) taken from other media, but the whole is knitted together into an unlikely but rewarding patchwork. You couldn't get this much quality exposure to things Japanese if you watched Japanese TV or stood browsing in a Tokyo bookshop for two weeks non-stop, that's how rich it is. My favourite sequence deals with commuters going through Tokyo Station, ascending and descending stairs and, most especially, dozing off on an overground train. The film may have been shot in the eighties, but you could (if permitted) film identical scenes today). How Marker managed to film this and get permission I will never know (maybe he never did), because he superimposes very telling and sometimes horrifying and yet somehow everyday images onto these poor commuters in a way I find quite mesmerising. The sequence seems to visit and rummage around in the very pysche of what it's like to live, work, and travel in this incredibly busy city. The soundtrack is brilliantly spooky and and an essential part of the experience. 'La jetee' is an amazing science fiction film, though almost completely made up of still images, aside from one short sequence, that tells the story of a love affair that takes place at a time of Armageddon and dizzyingly backtracks to the events that led up to one event. It was the inspiration for Terry Gilliam's 'Twelve Monkeys'. Both films are beautifully narrated in French, but there is an optional English narration if you want to really concentrate on the ravishing images. There are some excellent extras, too, including experimental film-maker Gorin talking about Marker.
Description of La Jetee/Sans Soleil (Criterion Collection)
One of the most influential, radical science-fiction films ever made and a mind-bending free-form travelogue, La jet?e (The Jetty) and Sans soleil (Sunless) couldn't seem more different-yet they're the twin pillars of one of the most daring and uncompromising careers in cinema history. Chris Marker, filmmaker, poet, novelist, photographer, editor, and now videographer and digital multimedia artist, has been challenging moviegoers, philosophers, and himself for years with his complex queries about time, memory, and the rapid advancement of life on this planet. These two films-a tale of time travel told in still images and a journey to Africa and Japan-remain his best-loved and most widely seen.General DVDs
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