La Jetee Film Analysis

Film poster. (Source: welcomenotations.com)

La Jetee is what Rosenstone would refer to as an innovative drama. It is filmed entirely in black and white and is a “photo roman,” a photographic novel consisting of only a series of still images. These images are accompanied by transitions as well as soundtrack, and a narrator tells the story of what the images mean. While the film is short, it is dense with meaning. The title itself, La Jetee, refers both to the pier on which the beginning and end scenes take place, but also to the idea that the protagonist is a projectile (Kawin, 16.) This makes sense when one thinks of the protagonist as a man thrown through time by both his captors and the power of his own mind. The drama of the film centers on a man in a post-apocalytic Paris who is held captive by an unidentified enemy and subjected to a series of experiments with the ultimate goal of sending him to the future to obtain a source of energy for his own devastated time. To accomplish this, he is sent back in time by means of his own strong memories of the past. 

 The first eight minutes of the film. (Source: YouTube)

There are several key scenes to this film. The first comes at the beginning, when we see the protagonist as a young man standing on the titular pier. It is here that he sees a woman, who makes an indelible impression on his memory. On this pier he also sees a man die, as he runs toward the woman, but it is her face that creates the strongest impression on him. This particular scene serves to foreshadow the final moments of the film. Later, when the boy has become a man and is sent into the past through his memories he meets the woman he had seen as a child and begins a relationship with her. Another key scene from the film is when the two go to a museum that is full of taxidermy animals. These animals are stuck in a moment of time and can never change. It is also a metaphor for the extinction of humanity, where all that is left of is the bodies and the traces of what we once were. The final scene of the film sees the protagonist returning to the pier he visited in his youth to find the woman, and while he is running toward her he is killed by one of his captors. The man realizes that he is the man he saw die in his childhood, and the scene is a reminder of the cyclical nature of time. The narrator intones that one cannot escape time, and the protagonist cannot, though it is only in his final moments that he realizes this. According to Kawin, film is just as inescapable as time (Kawin, 16.) I took this to mean that we are unable to escape the films we have seen, regardless if we want to or not. Film and images leave indelible impressions on the viewer, just as the memories of the protagonist mark him.

 One of the experimenters (Source: Foto Azzaro blog.)

This film is my favorite of those that we have covered in this course. It is a reflection of the time in which it was made in that it reflects the anxieties of the 1960s. The film was shot during the Cold War, when the fear of nuclear annihilation was a major source of concern, and the post-apocalyptic setting of the film demonstrates this, among other themes. Another part of the film that gives us historical context is use sound, particularly the inclusion of voices whispering in German in the background of scenes that depict the protagonist in the prison camp. I believe this is an allusion to the Vichy Regime which ruled France during the Nazi occupation, which the filmmaker lived through and which was still present in the French public consciousness.

The museum scene. (Source: YouTube)

 In his article "Time and Stasis in La Jetee," Bruce Kawin examines the film. In it he, mentions that the title of the film can mean, among other things, breakwater. This is an allusion to the protagonist, who is the constant against which the waves of time break. Memory also plays an important role in both the film and Kawin's anlysis. The Man is chosen because of the clarity and strength of his memories, and through these memories, presented to the audience as images, he is able to travel back in tiem (Kawin 16-7.) 


While researching this film, I came across this article, which examines the film from a Platonic perspective. I found it an interesting read that presents a unique perspective on this film. I also found out that this film served as the inspiration for the 1995 Hollywood movie 12 Monkeys, directed by Terry Gilliam.

The trailer for Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys. (Source: YouTube)