My good buddy Garret just started a blog and posted about La Jetée, an absolutely mind blowing sci-fi short by Chris Marker. When I first saw the film, it wasn’t really available on DVD (although I tried to get it off some out of print collection and its now available through Criterion) but Garret’s post re-sparked my interest.
Enter YouTube. I just ordered the DVD, but do yourself a favor and watch this - it is less than half an hour long and really is one of the most amazing films I have ever seen. I’ve posted the film with its original French w/ English subtitles below - it is split into three parts. If that doesn’t tickle your fancy you can watch the whole thing with an English overdub and in one video here. The plot is what really gets me (I won’t give anything away), but the photography is phenomenal and deserves special mention - it consists almost entirely of still images and still is able to grab my attention better than most of the films I see today.
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A second film by Chris Marker, which is actually bundled with La Jetée on the Criterion DVD, called Sans Soleil is also really fantastic. Of note: La Jetée was the inspiration for the more modern movie 12 Monkeys.