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La jetée (1962) More at IMDbPro »

Short 2 - Dreams (dvd):

Amazon.com video review: This reissue of the second release in a series of DVD anthologies of short films, like its fellow Short titles, is loosely organized around a common theme--in this case, the terrain of the subconscious. The big fish here is Chris Marker's 1962 classic, La Jetée, the forever- haunting, post-apocalyptic story of a man's descent into a time-tripping dream state, where his origins and destiny fold together in one fleeting moment at an airport. If that scenario sounds somewhat similar to a certain Terry Gilliam feature (oh, OK, it's 12 Monkeys), you're right, and Gilliam can be heard on an alternate soundtrack here talking about the challenge and fun of being "inspired by" Marker's film. (Yet another alternate soundtrack features commentary by 12 Monkeys screenwriters David and Janet Peoples.) Not surprisingly, La Jetée turns out to be a hard act to follow, and there's not much on Short 2 that even comes close to its league. Alison De Vere's 1974 animated piece, Café Bar, about a blind date at a coffee house, is more intriguing for its historical value as a "brushsticks style" of crafting images than as a work of art. Joachim Solum and Thomas Lien's watery Depth Solitude is an effectively blunt and bizarre--but ultimately obvious--fable about a pool cleaner who lives in his deep-sea-diving suit at the bottom of a public swimming facility. The best thing going for it is an English-language narration by Max Von Sydow, who unfortunately is not involved with Carmen Elly's A Guy Walks into a Bar. This competent but wearying film, about a college-bound young man (Fred Savage) who meets up with a sexy hitchhiker (Allison Moir) and finds his world changed, does not inspire thoughts of a second viewing. On the plus side, there's an interview with independent director George Hickenlooper and an accompanying, interesting bit showing us a pre-production prototype of select scenes from Hickenlooper's The Big Brass Ring. If you've seen the latter movie in its finished state (based on an original script by Orson Welles and Oja Kodar), it is startling to watch an entirely different roster of actors (including Malcolm McDowell) in roles that Hickenlooper ultimately recast with William Hurt, Nigel Hawthorne, Miranda Richardson, and Irène Jacob. --Tom Keogh

La Jetee (vhs):

Amazon.com video review: Director Chris Marker was a determined experimentalist who still sought to entertain, so it's no surprise that his most famous film, La Jetée, is both bizarre and compelling. Shot as a collage of still images, it tells the story of a man sent backward and forward in time in order to save a war-ravaged world. Packing all of the intensity of a full-length feature into 28 minutes, this densely layered narrative stands up to many repeat viewings. Every moment is fraught with anxiety, longing, and suspense as the unnamed protagonist moves through and across time, trying to avoid death at the hands of his contemporaries, the repeated loss of a past love, and the annihilation of his world in the future. Much more a human story than a science fiction film, it is essentially about the power of memory, and its snapshot format captures the feel of a strongly remembered moment. This film is definitely a masterpiece and is not to be missed by the serious cineaste. (The American film 12 Monkeys was adapted from La Jetée, though the original is no doubt the superior piece of cinema.) --James DiGiovanna