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This is the story of a man marked by an image from his childhood.
A woman's face at the end of a jetty is the only peacetime image that has survived an unnamed war. Paris is destroyed. The world is uninhabitable, riddled with deadly radioactivity. Western culture has progressed into self destruction.
Chris Marker's Le Jette graphically portrays an underground post apocalyptic beacon. The survivors of the war live beneath the earth's poisoned surface, and attempt a technological solution to their problem of survival. Under the leadership of the Director and Dr. Frankenstein, prisoners are used as guinea pigs for experiments in time travel. Marker's images of blindfolded men with electrodes to each eye are juxtaposed against their captor's blank expressions.
Technology in the service of tyranny; they need food, medicines, and sources of energy to survive. Emissaries are sent through time to plead for human interventions into their tragic errors. The past would be urged to prevent the conditions for this catastrophe; and, if that failed, a trip to the future to beg for mercy. The mind was resistant to this idea; however, to have the ego be reborn in another age. The shock was too great.
The man who's story we follow is chosen to travel to the past and the future. His memories become fuel for the experimenter's plan. He resists, but their mind control proves too much for him. He can not deny their access. After ten days, memories appear like confessions.
He reveals a memory of a woman's face, which resonates because of it's specificity and intensity ; her face smiling up at him from a car, her face at a museum, her face at the end of the jetty. She asks him about a medallion around his neck; a dog tag from a war which is yet to come. He tells her about a distant country and a long journey, which she listens to without judgment.
The Director sees that this is fruitless, so he propels the time traveler to the future to beg for mercy for mankind. In this world, the planet was reformed and Paris rebuilt. 10,000 incompressible avenues marked the city.
The time traveler recites his mission: since mankind had survived, how could they deny assistance to the past? They allowed his return with enough energy to start up the world's industry, and then the doors to the future once again closed.
Realizing his mission is over, the time traveler realizes his status as used material, and his impending death. During his interrogation and debriefing, those from the future intercede, allowing him entrance into their more advanced world. He asks only that he could be returned to his childhood memories. He is allowed his final wish, which turns out to be not what he expected.
Marker's brilliant use of montage and atmosphere compel the viewer into a world where mankind is shown to be it's own worst enemy. Not even technology can mend simple human error.