Sans Soleil Movie Review (1983)
A nameless narrator reads letters from a fictitious cameraman named Sandor Krasna (Chris Marker), dense with philosophical vignettes. Chris Marker is one among a small throng of other filmmakers, accredited with conceiving of the cinematic essay.
Sometimes documented as a travelogue spanning Africa, Japan, Iceland and elsewhere, Sans Soleil is a meditation on border crossing and the egress of memory. Its seeming disparately strung frames tell stories in and among themselves, yet are also a part of a larger story.
David Lynch’s INLAND EMPIRE echoes a similar sentiment…that this thing in that room is somehow connected to that thing in this room. Whether room, or frame, or the passing of time, the topic in question is not an isolated effect. In Marker’s films, themes interpenetrate, converge and then diverge again with relative ease—a metamorphosis of ideas, a blending of realities and fictions. They represent a testament that truth is often found by the wayside.
The film’s title, translated “Sunless,” is adopted from a desolate song cycle by Modest Mussorgsky. It is also complicit with what it belies. A sunless world necessitates the desire for possibility to come from movement through the dark.
Jennifer Dawson
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Grading
- Story A+
- Acting NA
- Visuals A+
- Originality/Innovation A+
- Enjoyability A+
- Overall A+
- DVD Extras B+
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