Since I remembered La Jetée as a very visually arresting film the last time I watched it (maybe eight years ago on a very small and blurry television screen), I wanted to make sure I gave it its proper due this time. Some friends and I borrowed the dvd from the library, hooked up my digital projector and the stereo, and settled in on the sofa to watch. One of us had never seen it before, and two of us had seen it a couple of times, but not for a long time. We were all totally mesmerized by the movie. We watched the extra features on the dvd, and we talked about it for a good 45 minutes afterward. How is this movie made of still images and a soundtrack so powerful?

One of the most compelling aspects of the movie is that while discussing memory explicitly it is actually structured like a memory, too. Very often, we remember individual snippets and images or other sensory input like smell; very rarely do we remember more than a short arc of motion in time. When we do genuinely remember motion (rather than simply closing the gaps between still images in our memories) it seems especially powerful. This connection between still images in our memory functions similarly to *****’s ideas regarding closure between panels of comics. He sees the leap of imagination required for our minds to create closure between panels as one of the most powerful aspects of comics. Similarly, I think the leaps of closure we make between the sensations that make up our memories provide them with some of their power. For example, it is not so much the exact still image of my perfectly coiffed grandmother wearing a pressed white shirt, pink slacks, and Keds sneakers, standing in her sun room and cooing to her pet doves that stirs up powerful emotions. It is all of the connections that my mind makes to that image that gives it power.

At one point in La Jetée the narrator describes images as “oozing like confessions,” as if they were an uncontrollable, emotionally necessary side product of living. But images become so important in the world the protagonist inhabits that they become his reality. He can only exist within a time he has images from, and can only understand what he sees. He  knows that gardens existed only because he has an image of a garden in his mind. Because the images he has aren’t sequential, though, it’s difficult for him to make sense of his memories.