La Jetee

Location: University Center 212
Seen Before: Yes
Rating: 5.0

I'd read and seen a still from this photo roman about a year ago, and immediately began my investigation into tracking down a copy of it. It was difficult, but I finally caught it on the Sundance Channel.
My expectations and excitment were through the roof prior to sitting down and taking it in and, unbelieveably, they were shattered moments into the viewing. La Jetee is so beautiful and perfect that words practically fail to correctly describe it. Of the hundreds of still images that make up this photo roman, not one is flawed--each wonderfully exquisite. This is as close to poetry that I have ever seen a film come to, and probably will ever see. Chris Marker works within the science fiction genre not because he is interested in showing us some great new future world, but because he is instead fascinated by ideas and characters set in this futuristic surrounding (an element that makes 2001, Blade Runner, and almost every sci-fi film so outstanding). The real tradegy of Marker's masterpiece is that it is so hard to come by.
Criterion? Are you listening?