La Jetée
It’s surprising enough that such a movie would be considered a movie, but it makes a lot of sense. I tend to like them after all, it’s a picture drama! (This one doesn’t have any of those very usual camera pannings though.)
My favorite shot of the whole movie is where the woman lifts her hair so you can see her neck. I like it in a very random way and realize that, but it’s partially these kinds of details that make the film wonderfully beautiful. With the voice-over, the black and white pictures and the slightly psychedelic background ‘music’, the film feels like a mix of “Alphaville” and “Nuit et Brouillard” to me… Or is it just this monotone French narration that makes me feel like that?
All in all, the story itself is simple, the execution absolutely briliant and for some reason, the film is haunting me a little. Its beauty, the short yet enticing storyline and especially its predictable yet striking ending has left quite an impression on me. Somehow I had to think about it. What made his love so beautiful? Is it because it was a childhood memory? Is it because of the contrast to the cold apocalyptic world?
There are a few weird things about the film too. The human experiments evoke the idea of concentration camps, evil-sounding German voices inclusive. And it’s weird that the guy never tries to look for this woman in the present (when she must be at most 30 years older than her), but lingers in the past. There is something romantically egoistic about wanting to meet the young woman instead of actually caring about what happened to her later. (Of course it’s not the point of the movie.)
I want to see 12 Monkeys very much now.
PS. I like the German arte version the best. Just as expected from arte, the translation is fairly good!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EZ5RxHvbGY
I think Marker consciously emulated much of Vertigo’s fatalist streak and the male protagonist’s obsession with the image of a woman – explicitly from the past. It’s one of the loveliest and most original hommages in cinema (as with all great hommages, this one really turns the inspiration from the original film into something totally personal and new. I guess in this case the result is particularly stunning, as Marker considered Vertigo the single greatest film ever made).
Oh wow, I have never considered “La Jetée” to be to an homage to “Vertigo” but indeed it makes a whole lot of sense! I agree that a great homage must be able to create something new and it definitely is the case for “La Jetée”. Although I’m not as much of a fan of “Vertigo” as you are, I definitely appreciate the motive of hunting for a love in the past.
PS. I’m wondering what this person who made the comparison video used as a font. It totally looks like a font I should be able to recognize, heh.