The Website at the End of the Universe has a link which will interest those of us with an interest in serious SF movies. La Jetée (1962) is a short French movie by Chris Marker in which survivors of a disastrous future attempt to go back in time to seek aid from the past; as the hero travels repeatedly through time he sees the same woman and a violent incident in an airport terminal which seems to be connected to his childhood. Sound familiar? It should, since it is similar to (and indeed is the inspiration for) the much later Terry Gilliam movie Twelve Monkeys. It’s one of those films you hear about at lectures and conventions but rarely get to see – I saw it only once as part of a post-movie talk at a series at the Edinburgh Filmhouse years back. Thanks to the web you can now view La Jetée anytime you want; it might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but the concept is a fascinating one and the film itself is largely composed of still black and white photographs filmed to produce a movie, overlapping static images combining to tell a tale, almost like a photo comic book.
Mon, Jan 8, 2007
Film, TV and radio, General