Sans Soleil (Dub)
by Chris Marker
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VHS Tape Cover Information
Actor: Alexandra Stewart, Charlotte Kerr, Florence Delay, Kim Novak, Riyoko IkedaDirector: Chris Marker
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Original Language); French (Original Language), Analog; Japanese (Original Language)
Format: Color, Dubbed, Letterboxed, NTSC
Running Time: 100 minutes
Release Date: 1998-01-01
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Publisher: New Yorker Video
Studio: New Yorker Video
VHS Movie Reviews of Sans Soleil (Dub)
Movie Review: A Gem of Inventive Filmmaking
Summary: 5 Stars
I saw Sans Soleil in an art film class I took a year or so ago. I had no idea what to expect, and I was totally enthralled. I scoured the internet for a copy of the film on DVD, and finally did find a bootleg copy somewhere. It remains my favorite film experience ever, and each time I watch it I make new connections and realize another idea the film is suggesting. Before I proceed, let me note that the film is neither fiction nor traditional documentary, but is an "essay film," meaning a voiceover provides the only dialogue throughout the 2+ hours of the film, which may try the patience of a great many viewers.
This film has an incredible tone to it, a somber elegance with a hint of melancholy which is nested in the voice over, which is, again, the single element giving structure to what would otherwise look like a jumbled stretch of filmic field recordings. The voiceover, which is credited as letters from the filmmaker's friend, but which is actually a script the filmmaker wrote as if his friend had written him said letters, is itself a beautiful and haunting reflection on time and memory, of the failure of creation to overcome the march of time. So in a way, it castigates itself to failure. (This is one reading, it also contains Marker's signature postcolonial criticism, etc., etc.) The voice also seems to operate at a kind of remove, since Marker wrote the dialogue years after he shot all the disparate footage, which almost makes it feel as though we're listening to the notes some deity has transcribed while watching the feeble human race go about its business.
This said, I believe the film does have to be experienced in a certain setting, or with a certain mindset. It's best in exhibition, or when watched alone. I tried showing it to a friend in my apartment, and I could feel that something wasn't right, that he wasn't going to get as much out of it as I would. And perhaps you have to be some specific type of person to really love this film, though I have no idea what this type of person would be.
Summary of Sans Soleil (Dub)
On the surface, this remarkable 1982 filmed essay by the legendary Chris Marker--the French filmmaking pioneer whose extraordinary works about the properties of memory (including the 1962 La Jet?e, remade by Terry Gilliam as 12 Monkeys) comprise a chapter of French New Wave history--appears to be a kind of travelogue. Using narration, documentary footage, photographs, and various sorts of mental meanderings, Marker constructs a cinematic parallel to the inherent adventures in journeying through different parts of the world. With great, self-effacing wit, Marker invokes that sense of broadened wisdom and vision that accompanies travel, as well as the delicate problem of trying to communicate the scale of that wisdom and vision to others. The delightful movie takes us to many fascinating sights in Tokyo, but what really develops is a dialogue with the audience about the nature of a filmmaker's pact with them, as well as the insecurity of trying to live up to that promise. A wonderful, clear-eyed experience, one that makes you wonder why Marker continues to be tagged with the obfuscating tag of "experimentalist." --Tom KeoghArt House & International VHS Video
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