Paradoxical Inner Space
A nameless hero is sent back in time by scientists. The situation in La Jetée‘s story circles back to its paradoxical starting place in search of a source of fuel and nourishment. Up until it resurrects itself again, it engulfs itself. The destination travels through the tail via the inner space path. The patient selects one recollection from the memories of the tourists. He saw violent incidents at Orly Airport as a child.
It depicts a man falling, which causes a woman to react in a startled manner. However, viewers can categorize Chris Marker’s movie as a genre exercise. It also functions as an essay on cinematic time and a work of philosophical fiction. Therefore, it does not identify as a movie. It plays as a photo romance when one fact is unavoidable to the audience. It refers to a picture book. However, it alludes to a comic strip that was widely read in publications in the 1950s.
The name indicates that what viewers observe becomes a static object, particularly in Europe. The subtitle announcing the film’s origin is absent from both the book and the movie. It narrates its story through black-and-white still photographs and takes on the structure of the apocalyptic science fiction that was popular during the Cold War.
Static Image
La Jetée consists of a quick shot of someone moving, accompanied by voiceovers and sound effects. The camera may change position at any time. It moved away from the immovable hole until it found a suitable location for an observatory. Each film’s static image at such a point is much longer. Each celluloid had made dozens of copies in less than two seconds. As a result, it displays a collection of frozen images to the audience.
Marker consistently dramatizes the minute aspects of time’s passage. It develops into a series of seeming moments that function as distinct units of time. The hero travels through time to the far future. A succession of microscopic images played out the new world. The film’s ending turned into a parable. It comes from concise yet stylish writing. It also originates from the accuracy of an awakened image, though.
Because of the adaptability of the montage, the film is more than just a love story. However, it’s also a picture storyboard. Its peculiar formal quality is astonishing as a sci-fi inspiration à la Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys. It prompts a reconsideration of thought in the audience, both consciously and unconsciously.
The Nature of Cinema
In the concept, the audience can consider the nature of cinema as well as the relationship between space and time. La Jetée frequently uses a shutter speed of 24 frames per second to capture moving subjects. Thought changed the flow of the frame. It functions as an illusion by way of the perceptual process of seeing. Instead, the autonomous motion copy automatically divides its story into a sequence of still pictures.
Remembering that the motion illusion consists of several still images, Marker creates a length for each. The image appears to move as a result of very few variations, becoming one cohesive unit of cinematic flow. For instance, the flavor of garden varieties replaced the future. The blunt remark gave the protagonist a deep, fantastical sense of a new world. Despite being basic, the ingredients are outstanding.
However, antiquity affected 1960s Paris. The image of a classical statue or a fragmented figure from the film, for instance, demonstrated the preservation of historical culture. Marker alters the frame of reference to create a post-apocalyptic setting. The future’s main character points out a location for a woman outside the circle. It represents a time in the future when he will eventually exist. Paradoxically, references to the future turn into rehashes of the past themselves.
Memory and Time, the Past and the Future
The imaginary period’s past repeated the gesture of pointing toward the protagonist. Despite Marker mirroring it, the character from the future relived the incident in a previous sequence. Significantly, Marker explores memory and time using the same technique as in Sans Soleil. As a result, in terms of cinematic suspense, time passes differently. The audience’s understanding of the past and the future has changed over time, too.
The present and the past are alternately used to create suspense in the story. It is set in Paris and describes the protagonist’s journey back in time. Currently, a mix of comments and images paints a strange picture of a city in 1962. It offers a fantastic, futuristic view, whether it’s in Orly or another linear structure. In the early 1960s, hypermodernity momentarily went on a voyage of isolation.
On a tableau, the tale does, however, powerfully depict recollections from the past. The perfect but deadly situation is beyond conscious perception. A sequence of frozen moments receives fluid energy through subtle rhythmic editing. For instance, a woman in bed is dozing off. She felt a hesitant excitement when several minutes of silence gradually moved over one another.
Experimental Focus
The woman suddenly snapped her eyes open. She is the real focus of the picture since she stares directly at the camera. It also temporarily replaces the origin’s moment, which is still on the dock. The film eventually succumbs to stasis. In Orly, the protagonist returns, and the woman waits for him on the pier. A barrage of gunfire makes a desperate slow-motion run tense and agonizing.
When the man collapses, however, the voiceover depicts the scene as a phantom. La Jetée outlines a route that few people choose to take directly. However, it had a huge impact on how things looked and how James Cameron and Wong Kar-wai would later work. In addition to other aspects, the film resembles a game of time. However, oddly, it also impacted an experimental cinema series.
A poorly related narrative appears to be made up of both text and visuals. Nevertheless, the film’s understated aesthetic abruptly but subtly shifts to brevity. When a movement interrupts the initial shot, the audience conducts a double take. Compare it to static pictures and increasing numbers of close-ups of the actor’s face.
Modern Narratives
Still, photographs with subtle variations in facial expression are more common. The full intersection of the frames creates the appearance of motion blur due to the temporal effect. The frame emerges from its frozen state through association. It lowers the gap between still pictures while transforming them into kinetic space. Marker’s still image compelled the protagonist to recall previous recollections, which has further narrative importance.
It propels itself into the past physically. Before waking up again in the past, present, or future, every second spent traveling through time is an actual visit. The scenes might not resemble anything from a contemporary film. A director can take the audience to a different place and time via a brief encounter lasting one or more hours. Before returning the viewer to reality, early practitioners of the form relied on films like La Jetée.
Realistic capacity enables the audience to appreciate the content more readily. It is because it is comparable to the audience’s environment. Therefore, to distinguish himself from “unconventional” storytelling techniques, Marker adopts a decidedly disjointed strategy. He makes an effort to stop the audience from recounting the story as though it were representative of their world.
The explanation is straightforward: Marker wants to give context to modern narratives.
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