La Jetée (The Pier) (1962)
Movie Info
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Cast
as Narrator
as The Experimentor
as The Woman
as The Man
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Critic Reviews for La Jetée (The Pier)
All Critics (24) | Top Critics (4) | Fresh (22) | Rotten (2) | DVD (5)
One of the best of all SF films is this haunting, apocalyptic 27-minute French short by the great Chris Marker.
The soundtrack's texture is similarly sparse, and the fluid montage leads the viewer into the sensation of watching moving images. Until, that is, an extraordinary epiphany when an image genuinely does move.
I find it tediously pretentious, but there are striking images in it, and it does get across a vague impression of Frankensteinian meddling with the brain.
This is Marker's masterpiece.
The major influence on Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys, La Jetée is made up almost entirely of still photographs that tell the futuristic story of a time traveler.
It's a stirring, emotional film about the unique hold memories have over people's lives and how experiences themselves are fleeting.
Audience Reviews for La Jetée (The Pier)
A must-see movie for all sci-fi fans. It appears boring at first, but you gradually sink into the story and in the end you see just how brilliant it really is. It's not for everyone, the film is experimental and slow paced. Overall, it is very good, though.
Super Reviewer
This thirty-minute "photo-roman" (series of narrated stills) tells the story of a man who's sent backwards, then forwards in time to try to find a way to avert a nuclear war, but spends his travels romancing a woman he saw once as a child whose image burned itself into his memory. An interesting science fiction storytelling experiment about the nature of memory that's been extremely influential over the years (it inspired Terry Gilliam's 12 MONKEYS). There is one moving image in the film; blink and you'll miss it...
Super Reviewer
Well its the first short movie that i've seen using nothng else but still photographs in order to get the story across and although its an interesting idea, i personally don't think its works all that well. The great thing about an actual movie is that the actors are able to properly get across the emotions that their ment to fill across to the audience and although pictures do capture some of that emotion i feel its not as strong as watching a moving picture. Its watchable purely on the fact it is only 30mins long longer than that then i'd probably have a different opinion!
Super Reviewer
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