The Third World War is over. Paris has been destroyed. The Earth is no longer habitable. People cluster in underground caves as scientists conduct experiments. The film explains, "The only hope for survival lay in time: a hole in time through which to send food, medicines, sources of energy. The aim of the experiments was to send emissaries into time to summon the past and the future to the aid of the present." A man (Davos Hanich) "volunteers" because he is haunted by an image from his childhood. In his mind he sees a woman (Helene Chatelain) standing at the edge of a jetty at the Orly Airport while a man runs toward her… a shot rings out…the man falls…dying. The volunteer travels back in time, then forward, then back again. Images morph into one another, haunting, frightening. It is over in 29 minutes.
Using black and white still photography (except for one shot) and a voice-over narration, Chris Marker's 1962 film, La Jetee, is one of the most enigmatic and thought provoking science fiction films ever made. The film takes us into the mind of a man and looks at memory, loss, dreams, and destiny. Sent back to try to save the human race, he and the woman meet again. He sees the world as it was before the war: with "real children", "a real bedroom", and "real birds". The narrator speaks: "They are without memories, without plans. Time builds itself painlessly around them. Their only landmarks are the flavor of the moment they are living and the markings on the walls." They fall in love. She calls him "my ghost". Is this happening only in his mind or is he reassembling the past? They go for walks and to a strange museum filled with mounted representations of extinct animals. Then it stops.
