Here’s a story you might’ve heard before: a man is haunted by childhood memories of someone being shot at an airport. Trapped in an experimental facility in a not-so-distant future, he is sent back in time over and over again and, on his travels, meets a woman from the past with whom he falls in love. Eventually, as he meets up with her in an airport, he gets shot, an event that is witnessed by his younger self. You’ve heard that one before, right? That is the plot toTerry Gilliam’s classic 1995 sci-fi thriller12 Monkeys, a movie so beloved that it would eventually spawna television showthat lasted for four seasons, between 2015 and 2018. But what if we told you that this story is a lot older than the mid-90s? What if we told youit actually dates back to a 1960s experimental French movie calledLa Jetée?
Directed byChris Marker,this 1962 film is the seed that would one day birth the tree that is12 Monkeys. Granted, the differences are many. ScreenwritersDavid PeoplesandJanet Peoples, the names behind Gilliam’s 90s hit, added a lot to the story created by Marker and even replaced a couple of plot elements. The Third World War that devastated Europe from the original film, for instance, gives way to a pandemic in12 Monkeys, and the reasons for all the time travel involved in the story sure changes a ton, from a desperate plea for the Past and the Future to come in aid of the derelict Present to a search for a cure. Still, Peoples cite Marker’s filmin their screenplay for12 Monkeys, and, well, it’s not hard to understand why considering the similarities in the basic premises of the two movies.
‘La Jetée’ Is a Stunning Work of Science Fiction
It’s also not hard to understand why the Peoples found this particular work of science fiction so influential. At merely 28 minutes of runtime,La Jetéeis a masterpiece of the genre, using its somewhat simple story to investigate themes such as memory, love, and what makes up the people we eventually become as we grow up. Said story focuses on a character identified only as The Man (Davos Hanich) who turned into a war prisoner in the undergrounds of Paris in the aftermath of World War III. With the surface covered in radiation, his jailers set up a series of experiments to send human guinea pigs back and forth in time in search of help in rebuilding their civilization. With such a strong memory of the pre-war past haunting him, our protagonist becomes the perfect test subject for these time-traveling experiments.
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Through a deterministic approach,La Jetéeavoidstime travel paradoxesand posits on the side of a certain philosophical current about the passage of time. The movie stands side by side withKurt Vonnegut’sSlaughterhouse-Five, for instance, in its belief that the future cannot be changed for what has happened has already been affected by the actions of time travelers that have gone through the past. The film also proposes that, even among our strongest memories of life and love, nothing can ever be stronger than our fear of death. After all, it is the image of his own demise that haunts the film’s protagonist, even though he isn’t always aware of it. The moment of our death is always in the background of our minds,La Jetéetells us, even if we don’t realize it.
There’s also something to be said about the visual qualities ofLa Jetéewhen it comes to creating a palpablesci-fiuniverse. With a noticeably low budget,the film relies on very little to make its vision of the future realistic and unsettling. Honestly, it is not that distant from the world Gilliam would eventually create with a lot more money. Weird goggles, raincoats, gauze, pieces of masking tape, and a hammock all work in favor of introducing us to a future - or a present - that is gritty, ugly, and, perhaps precisely because of it, extremely menacing.
‘La Jetée’ Redefines What Cinema Can Be
But, when it comes to visuals, the most important thing aboutLa Jetéeis not its art direction, but its cinematography. That’s because every single image you see in this article is exactly as it appears in the film: completely static. Instead of using 24 frames per second to tell his story,Marker uses 422 photographs, each one left on the screen for about 4 seconds, and 15 black screens. This furthers his perception of time as a series of unique moments that leave a lasting impression on us, but also reduces film to its most basic elements. After all, isn’t all cinema just a series of static images?
It is worth noting, though, thatthis doesn’t makeLa Jetéeany slower or more off-putting. Through the music, the narration, the indistinguishable mumbles of its characters, and, yes, the illusion of movement provided by Marker’s still images, the movie becomes extremely dynamic, and it is hard to feel the passage of its nearly half an hour. The film is so enthralling that Marker could have even made it into a full feature if he wanted. But, well, maybe that full feature already exists. Maybe it’s called12 Monkeys.
La Jetéeis available to stream on The Criterion Channel in the U.S.
Watch on The Criterion Channel
La Jetée is set in a post-apocalyptic Paris after World War III, telling the story of a man who is subjected to time travel experiments due to his vivid memory of a woman he saw as a child at Orly Airport. Constructed almost entirely from still photographs, the film explores themes of memory, time, and fate as the protagonist travels back in time to uncover the past and ultimately confront his destiny.
