Paris, sometime after a Third World War. Nuclear devastation has left people living underground, sheltering from the deadly radiation at the surface. Scientists are experimenting with time travel, in the hope that salvation for the desperate present can be found in the future or past. Prisoners are their guinea pigs. Most don’t survive the shock of a leap through time, but one of them proves to be highly successful. This is because of his fixation with a powerful childhood memory: at an airport he noticed a beautiful girl, and then saw a man die.
Chris Marker’s masterful contemplation of the power of memory and the ineluctable passage of time is seen by many as one of the best films ever made. The famous experimental short film tells the story entirely in still, black-and-white images. The dry voice-over, narrating the story as if it were a scientific report, creates an atmosphere that is at the same time both clinical and poetic.
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