Over the years, I had heard of the name Chris Marker, as an avante-garde filmmaker, but having sat through many lost hours, in my early twenties, watching Warhol Factory films and their dread knockoffs, one can understand why I was never particularly moved to engage the films of this man; especially considering that he was French, from that nation that launched the careers of such notable filmic failures as Jean Cocteau and Jean-Luc Godard. But, then I did something amazing. I actually dropped my biases, and watched and engaged the work of art before me (or, technically, the two works of art), and let it, not the opinions of others, dictate my reaction.

And that reaction was overwhelmingly positive. La Jetee (The Jetty), made in 1963, which clocks in at barely 28 minutes, is a flat out great film, and Sans Soleil, made in 1983, which comes in at just about 103 minutes in length, just misses that mark, primarily because it is too long, and sags about 60% of the way through. If it were 60-70 minutes long, it, too, would be an unquestionably great film. La Jetee is credited with being the influence behind Terry Gilliam’s 1995 film 12 Monkeys, but it’s influenced many other time travel films as well, most notably The Terminator film series, and the PBS version of Ursula K. LeGuin’s The Lathe Of Heaven.

But, why it works is that it is a film based solely on still photographs admixed with voiceover narration, save for one several second scene of the main female character blinking. What is so good about the film is that it shows how superfluous much of the ‘motion’ in motion pictures is. Film, after all, is a medium founded and nurtured by the written word. Without a good screenplay, a film is just shadows on a wall.

The story is very basic: a child witnesses the murder of a man at the Orly Airport, south of Paris, at the titular airplane jetty, and is struck by the beauty of the face of the woman (Hélène Chatelain) the man was headed toward. Years go by, and World War Three occurs. Paris is destroyed in a nuclear exchange (likely caused by Germany, since incidental German is muttered in the film), and the surviving members of humanity head underground. A band of rogue scientists hopes to ensure human survival by traveling back in time to secure goods needed for that survival. The boy, now a grown man (Davos Hanich), is chosen for the experiment because in order to go back in time the person needs to have a strong connection.

The ins and outs of the science are never explained, but the tale moves so swiftly there’s no desire for an explanation. His attraction toward the beautiful woman he saw as a boy allows him to befriend her, and he makes visits back to her over the course of weeks. He hints to her that he is from the future, and she is attracted to him. Then, he has his last trip to the past, and is instead sent to the future, the year 4001 AD. There he learns humanity has survived, and seeks to bring the secret back to his time. Yet, the future humans see through his sophism and send him back. With the experiments done, the scientists want to terminate the man, as he is of no further use. The future humans, however, intercede, and offer him refuge in the future. He refuses, instead asking to be sent back to the past, to be with the woman he’s loved across time. They send him back, he sees her at the airport, runs toward her, but is gunned down by assassins from his own time. Witnessing this all is the boy, who would grow up to be gunned down in front of his own uncomprehending eyes.