La Jetée (1962)

23 November 2019

La Jetée (1962) is one of the older films about time travel, and one of the more experimental films of that time. Done in still images, it talks about a man's life as an experimented-on prisoner after World War III. Its run time is 28 minutes.

Twelve Monkeys (1995, 10/10) was inspired by, and borrows directly from this film, and both are very well done: La Jetée tends to be a more abstract film, not really going into the science fiction parts of the story, and keeping the concepts in a minimal form. I think the shortness of the story and reduction in visuals lets the viewer fill in a lot of the story on their own (what else the characters do in between the still images), and makes the craft elevate the film a little more.

For what it is, and what it inspires, I appreciate this film a lot. It's concise, well written, and well presented. I can see why it inspired such a great homage as Twelve Monkeys over 30 years later. 10/10