virtualdaughter:

La Jetée (Chris Marker; 1962)

“In a devastated Paris in the aftermath of WWIII, the few surviving humans begin researching time travel, hoping to send someone back to the pre-war world for food, supplies and maybe a solution to their dire position.”

La Jetée is a short, experimental French film (<30mins) that is made up of a series of still images and a voice-over.  It’s an excellent example of a piece of artwork that really utilises its medium: it’s a retelling of a tale about time travel made possible by a man’s preoccupation with a single image of his past.

Marker took inspiration for La Jetée from Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo and it is itself the inspiration for Terry Gilliam’s Twelve Monkeys.

“This time he is close to her, he speaks to her.  She welcomes him without surprise.  They are without memories, without plans.  Time builds itself painlessly around them.  Their only landmarks are the flavour of the moment they are living and the markings on the walls.”

8.3 on IMDb.

“Nothing tells memories from ordinary moments; only afterwards do they claim remembrance, on account of their scars.”

(via thatkief)