La Jetee

Chris Marker's La Jetee (1962) is a French Sci-Fi film that lasts for 28 minutes, made up almost entirely of still photos in black and white. It is a story of time travel, that leaves the unnamed protagonist running around in an endless cycle over and over. The only speech that is heard in the film is the narrator, and the scientists that experiment on the man while they whisper to each other in German. So as well as using still photos for visuals, even the dialogue is vague and mysterious. The film is very discreet with what it shows the audience, leaving it up to the narrator, photo transitioning and sound to tell the story. 

The film begins at the same location in which it ends; a pier outside of an airport in Paris. A boy who witnesses man die, has that memory imprinted into his brain ever since. It is the same boy who is imprisoned and seen being experimented on by the scientists when he is older, set in a post-nuclear world where few are still alive and underground. The scientists underground use this man as their test guinea pig, to travel through time and potentially change the fate of humanity. These scientists use drugs on the man in part of the process for their aim, which is also captured by the quiet echos of voices, as well as the photo stills displaying an angle looking up at the scientists as if from the man's eyes. He is sent back in time before the war period, and develops a romantic relationship with the woman that he remembered seeing on the pier at the same time he witnessed a man die. After being sent into the future and meeting people who help him on the mission, he learns that the scientists experimenting on him have intention to kill him. Although help to escape is offered to him by the people he met in the future, he instead requests to go back in time before the war to find the woman he loves. He travels back to time and place of the same memory that he is obsessed with, knowing that the woman was there at the time. He runs across the pier to get to her, as he gets close he notices that one of the agents who wants to kill him is also on the pier. Before the man gets a chance to do anything, except finally realizing that he himself is the man that he witnessed die all them years ago, he is killed right there on the pier.

What's great about this ending is that it's not really an ending, it's one loop out of an infinite time loop. Once this is shown, it adds to the eerie atmospheric tension that lingers for the whole duration of the film up to that point. Every life the man lives, he is destined to die on that pier, and what makes it even more twisted is that his childhood self sees himself die every time. The whole situation will seem strikingly familiar to you if you've watched movies about time travel that are more recently made, that use the same never ending time cycle theory as La Jetee. 

Despite the mystery that the film may convey due to the still photos, they can hold powerful relevance to the story. For example, the photos are still and not moving which can be perceived as lifeless or inactive. The man of the story can also be seen as lifeless as he walks into his own death again and again, without getting the chance to live his life any differently each time. Providing photos instead of moving footage also creates that confusion and awareness of time in the film, suggesting that because of all of the time travelling and alterations in dates, not even the camera knows what footage to show. The photos are gathered and shown in an order to highlight a singular cycle of this man's life before he dies, and is basically a show reel of his memories and captured subconscious thoughts leading up to his death. 

La Jetee is very experimental, maybe that is why watching it nowadays causes it to deliver a hauntingly cold mood that is not quite understood until the film has ended. Making an audience feel this way is impressive, as the protagonist in the film would have felt the exact same confusion throughout the film as the viewer. While watching, the importance of the first scene will seem bewildering, as to which it does for the protagonist. In addition to this, you can't help but feel like a victim yourself to what is going on while watching, just like the man in the film. In the end when the man meets his inevitable fate, he realizes everything and the confusion turns into shock. Typically, the audience will feel the exact same way as they experience this and come to the realization on it all. Putting the viewer's emotions, curiosity and sudden realization on the same platform as the hero makes this movie more special than a lot of others. Nobody would have known how the film would conclude, or how things would all add up. When it finally does, the end has arrived and you do not get to spend any more of the film knowing this. Similar to the man in the film, when things finally make sense it all ends, only he doesn't get to spend anymore of his life knowing this.