La Jetee La Jetee is a sci-fi film made up solely of still images and a split second of live action.

Although its made up of stills it doesnt loose its sense of tension, and feels a lot like a very detailed animatic capturing the story through a series of stills and an engaging soundscape . Chris Marker is known for his many documentaries such as Sans Soleil and loin du Vietnam. His work has been described as, peculiar with a strong focus on left wing politics. Although La Jetee isnt a documentary it possesses the feeling of being one, through the usage of black and white photography making it feel as if it is a series of real events that have occurred. Damian Cannon, film critic explains how the film acquires its charm, he states that the photographs are grainy enough and shot in such a way that the immediate impression is of war time photojournalism (Cannon,1997) What Cannon appears to be saying is that Chris Markers choice of using black and white photographs transports the viewer to a tragic time by resembling past war time photographs. The grainy images allow it to feel dated as if the viewer is peering into a past that isnt really clear. The graininess also coincides with the time travellers who have to jump through time feeling uncertain about their location.

Figure 1.La Jetee Poster art.(c.1962) The Poster art depicts the important stills in the film and has a scrap book approach to it. Figure 1 shows the poster art for La Jetee created in 1962. The image shows a collection of stills that are used in the movie. The Poster depicts a lot of important stills that giving away a lot of the movie, but because the voice

narrative is not present, its hard to decipher the correlation between the images making them appear as a collage of events. Sound plays a very important role in this movie and without it, the film would make no sense. The voice actor that tells the story has a very strong soothing voice and accompanied with the stills makes the film feel as if it is a real account of someones life. Philip French film critic of the observer, describes the sound in La Jetee as having a sonorous voice narrative and eerie sound effects (French,2011)The film does possess these things and uses them to create tension in the right places to not produce a flat cinematic experience. The storyline kept the film interesting, when the stills got mundane and repetitive at times the storyline kept it pushing through because the viewer wants to resolve the story and find out what happens to the time traveller. Colin Odell and Michelle Le Blanc film critics explains the importance of storytelling, they assert that The strength of La Jetee still lies with its approach to storytelling (or lack thereof ) (Odell & Le Blanc, s.d) The critics appear to be saying that the approach of using stills displays the story but doesnt reveal everything that could have been happening in the scene. There were no ways to read they characters body language to really analyse the film in a different light. However the stills displayed enough information for the story to make sense. However this could have been done so that the story that Marker wanted to come across could only be interpreted in one way, it also kept the lead female character mysterious.

Figure 2. La Jetee Death.(1962) Figure 2 is the last still shown in the film, and before the narrator said what happened the viewers already know, and the plot has been resolved. The still feels really effective and makes the ending feel really dramatic. Figure 2 is the

last still in La Jetee and shows the protagonist being shot as he runs up to meet a woman that he has fallen in love with. The still works in a very effective way of bringing the film to conclusion and making the ending feel resolved.

Bibliography Cannon,D.(1997).La Jetee 1962. At: http://www.film.unet.com/Movies/Reviews/Jetee.html (Accessed on 07.01.2013). French, P.(2011).La Jetee / Sans Soleil. At: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/sep/25/jetee-sans-soleil-dvdreview?INTCMP=SRCH (accessed on the 08.01.2013) Odell, C. & Le Blanc,M. (s.d). A Trio of Chris Marker Films: La Jetee , Sans Soleil, Level 5. At: http://www.kamera.co.uk/article.php/1211 (Accessed on 07.01.2013).

Illustration list Figure 1.La Jetee poster art.(c.1962)[Poster] At: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/YjQRZLvufD8/T1g40JaknwI/AAAAAAAAA98/gYr9N1DfUlw/s1600/La+Jetee+Po ster.jpg (Accessed on 07.01.2013). Figure 2. La Jetee Death.(1962).From La Jetee. Directed by: Chris Marker .[Film Still] France.At: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Xh8OsdXukAM/TUnQ77CcmkI/AAAAAAAAA3I/0Y9a CMmsFXI/s1600/La+Jetee+death.jpg (Accessed on 07.01.2013).