Movie Review of La Jetée Film and Analysis of the Theme of Obsession
Initial impressions
The film has made me feel sad on how radioactive substances used during World War III caused damage to the human race. The bad experiences in life bring sorrows and suffering that the mind usually “rewinds” over. I perceive the film as an open edge in science in the need for solving the present problems using the past and the future. As I watch it, I can recognize from the still images that the movie is about a man who was a victim of war during his childhood. The man ended up chosen for an experiment by scientists in the quest towards solving the present problems basing on the future and the past. The man who is the prisoner remembers the effects of radioactive substances used during Paris La Jetée. The intensity of the negative effects of the war relates to his nostalgic love towards a woman who died. The man is obsessed with a girlfriend and his memories are full of love ventures with the woman. Even though the lover died, the man is still obsessed with her as she is the centrality of his memories in life. The prisoner equates the preciousness of getting back to the past life before the war to like having the dead who ended up dearly loved back to life. The man remembers the sweet moments with a lover as when there was plenty of food, medicine and energy before the war. Film summary, theme and analysis Chris Marker’s La Jetée (1962) features the story of the World War III aftermath telling of the story of a man (Davis Hanich), the woman (Helene Chetelain) and the experimenter (Jacques Ledoux). The movie turns out split into three clips each of approximately nine minutes featuring the experiment done by the experimenter using a man with the war memories from his childhood. Marker directs the movie by the use of still images coupled with background music and murmurs. The movie begins by featuring the protagonist during his youth at the titular pier where he sees a beautiful woman that attracted his attention and mind. The images of a dying man running towards a woman also turn out seen in the first scene of the movie. When the dying man runs towards the woman, her face remained in his mind for life.
The climax of the film is when the man foreshadows the incidences with the woman seen at the titular pier. The memories of romance in the museum, at the airport and exchange of flowers, bring the film to its peak. The boy at the pier ends up seen now as a man but still with memories, and he starts meeting the dead out of obsession. The man’s mind carries him to the past moments of relating with the woman who died during the war. Marker displays the way they used to go to the museum together through flashback. The falling action of the film is when we see Markers featuring animals in the museum that seem stuck during a moment of time without the ability to change as highlighted in the second last scene of the movie. At the end of the film, Marker features the man going back to the pier in search for a woman he ends up obsessed with for long. On the way to meet his lover, he ends up shot by his captor. Dying while going to meet the woman brings to his realization that he is a man who died while going to meet a woman at the pier. As the film ends, Marker reveals that we cannot escape time even though we realize it lat; time is with us. Marker depicts different themes in La Jetée, but the theme of obsession has turned out evident throughout the movie. The movie ends up featuring a man’s mind preoccupied with a woman who died during the war. The man shows obsession with a woman to the extent of not having any other memory from his past times during the experiment. All through the movie, scenes end up surrounded by images of a woman who possesses the mind of a man. At the beginning of the film, a young man falls in love with a woman who ends up dominating his thoughts as all through his life. There is a continuous desire for the man in yearn for the past good times with a woman in the second scene of the movie. At the end of the movie, Marker features the obsession of a man towards a woman when a man dies while trying to meet a woman. The protagonist’s mind turn out dominated by memories of a woman even to the point of his death. His thoughts about a woman are very intense in hope of meeting her one-day even though she died during the war. The man’s memories with the woman seen in a nostalgic manner as the movies draws to an end depicts the manner in which she preoccupies his memories. The last image of the woman before her death has remained in the mind of a man for long. The man is obsessed with a woman because any foreshadowed surround around memories with the woman. Marker shows the theme of obsession in relation to the manner people had the memories about the environment and economy before World War III. Chris Marker’s (1962) La Jetée tries to show how science of fiction conveys time, memories and time travel as instruments for studying different dimensions of the human mind to specific incidences in life. The movie is a psychological and personal path portraying the obsession of a man (people) about a woman (life before the war). Recurring memories of trauma and displaced imaginations of the protagonist show that time rises back often and cannot end up avoided. Marker evokes the notion of remembering the cultural and social incidences in broader perception of incidences before the World War III using human psychology and condition experimentation. The setting of the film in 1960’s by Marker describes the manner in which the Paris La Jetée is a post-apocalyptic future. Using a man with memories from the effect of the event from childhood portrays the existence of time travel in peoples’ psyche. The views of time travel, memories and time travels end up well depicted from the film by the use of still images showcasing destroyed European cities and disoriented social lives where two lovers separates from each other. Civilians bombing of Paris yielded into tragic effects that caused victors to benefit while victims remained as prisoners under psychological disturbances in remembrance of the past life with a lot of nostalgia and obsession. The act of scientist seeking a solution in the present using the past and future elucidates on how the present life depends on events over time. With regard to this, the thesis of time, memories and time travel has the potential to reoccur today or in the future unless scientists carry out experimentations in search for solutions.
Source
http://alaskapirate.com/lajetee/. Viewed online on 3rd December 2014
