156: Sans Soleil (a.k.a. Sunless)

Chris Marker is known for not crediting himself.  Perhaps he does so to further guard his anonymity, which he must have a penchant for as a result of his stint in the French Resistance during the second World War.  It is said that he took his nom de cinema from Magic Markers; entirely possible and certainly apt, as he has the tendency to disappear into his films.  Here he goes so far as to have a woman (Alexandra Stewart) read the voiceover he has written for the experiences he displays in the third person, only referring to the director as “he.”

Still what he shows us is extremely but ironically personal; his distant commentary on his own past and experiences he has had with films.  This movie stands in contrast to his narrative La Jetee (1962; #189), in which the voiceover seems personal and the still images distant.  That film was about the reflection of an unknown future on a past that may not have happened, whereas this picture deals more with the definitive present.  Like many of the other globetrotting documentaries of the early eighties this is a reflection on customs and clashing cultures.  The past interacts with the future to create the reality of the now before it is replaced, day by day, second by second, and frame by frame. 

I’m sure this sounds vague, but this is a film to be seen, and difficult to do justice to with description.  It’s comprised of footage shot in Tokyo, Iceland, Guinea, and San Francisco, where marker searches for locations Hitchcock used for Vertigo.  If you’ve read my review of La Jetee you know that it was the base material for Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys (1995) which also drew heavily from that classic.  I imagine that watching this footage or the film in its entirety without the voiceover would be disorienting, as it seems to jump between locations and visual themes. 

       

Strung together by a soundtrack that aurally resembles B-sides of Pink Floyd albums, we see a Giraffe being hunted, the small tribute statues to cats at a suburban Buddhist Temple, and the generated images of video distorted by graphic alternators.  Somehow these images manage to generate a humanist tone, as all at once this film is political, feminist, religious, reflective, and startling.  It’s also kind of about emus in a way that if this sentence has already interested you, you’ll likely enjoy.

Grade: 3 Hats Off