The movie that inspired
Terry Gilliam's
12 Monkeys,
Chris Marker's
La jetée
is a landmark of science-fiction filmmaking, a 28-minute masterpiece
told almost entirely in still frames. Set in a post-apocalyptic
near-future, it tells the story of an unnamed man whose vivid childhood
recollections make him the perfect guinea pig for an experiment in time
travel. After a lengthy and nightmarish period of conditioning, he is
sent into the past, where he falls in love with a woman whom he once saw
on a pier. At the experiment's conclusion, he is visited by an advanced
race, who offer him the opportunity to journey into their future world,
but he instead requests that they send him permanently into the past,
where he can remain with the woman of his dreams. A singular experience.
