Week 11 Films

For some reason, I found it difficult to pinpoint my reaction to La Jette. While I was watching it, I felt pretty neutral towards it. It's possible that with its sparse imagery and narration I was lulled into a calm, hypnotic state. The story was engaging but a little confusing to me. The ending certainly had an impact though – I think because that kind of a twist appealed to my comfort with mainstream narrative films.

I really enjoyed the portion of the film where the couple goes to the museum with the stuffed animals. Many of those shots were stunning – particularly one where their bodies were obscured behind a screen and a bird hung overhead.

I had a more vivid reaction to Sans Soleil. The filming felt both very intimate and very distant. Marker really captured the Lost in Translation feeling of being a Westerner abroad. The filmmaker was in awe of the culture, in the midst of it and yet wholly separate.

The film takes on a very melancholy feeling, which is appropriate for its name. I think part of the reason for this is that we as an audience seem to be floating through the cultures without an anchor – it feels very lonely. Marker also focused on some of the disturbing yet banal features of a large city – the superficial ads that go abandoned and unnoticed.

Also, more than any other documentary I’ve seen, I genuinely wondered about the lives of the people on camera. I think since I couldn’t assume what their lives were like outside of when they were being filmed, I became very curious about their everyday.