Instead, we will discuss the film, 'Sans Soleil' by Chris Marker. I watched this last night in the documentary history course that I am taking, and I have to admit I was even more baffled by it than when I watched it the first time. Not that I understood it any better the first time; i think that I was just simply overwhelmed/enthralled the first time, and was unable to consider it from any sort of distance. I think that Werner Herzog summed up my own feelings of the film perfectly when he presented it a couple of years ago at the Film Forum. Prior to the screening (after telling a pretty hilarious story about curating at the Vienna Film Festival and hosting a disastrous screening of 'le Maitre Fous' after which he claims to be embarrassed to ever show is face in the city again) he said of 'Sans Soleil', something like: "I don't remember anything in particular about this film, but I remember feeling at the time I saw it that it was very profound and moving. So I don't really think that I can say anything about it. Let's just watch it." After the film ended, he said something like: "I don't think that it would be proper to attempt to speak about a film like that directly after watching it; there is simply too much going on to say anything intelligent at this time." I couldn't agree more. Its something that simply must be experienced for its strangeness, its beauty, and the spiraling sense of space and time that it evokes. I learned last night [SPOILER ALERT!] that Marker not only directed and edited it, but he also 'plays' the letter-writer, the composer, and the visual-effects specialist who creates 'the zone'. All of this reminds me strangely of trying to read a Thomas Pynchon book: it is clear that Marker's mastery of the visual realm and of the montage is as thorough as Pynchon's mastery of the written word and the metaphor, and you are constantly amazed by the shifting terrains that he pulls you through; however, there is, like in a Pynchon reading, the nagging sense that maybe the director is pulling a fast one on you - that you are mistaking high-falutin' gibberish for deep truths. I don't really think this is the case, but this feeling just speaks to the complexity of the film and its challenging themes and ideas.
Here's the opening 'scene':
