"La Jetée" + "Je t’aime, je t’aime"

La Jetée (The jetty)
Chris Marker
1962 / France / DCP / 29 min / Original version with Spanish subtitles
Not recommended for children under the age of 13.

In the wake of World War III and the nuclear destruction of the surface of the Earth, the winning side decides to experiment with the defeated prisoners. The purpose of the tests is to create a passage for time travel to the past and the future to transport food, medicines and energy sources to save the present. This story is about the prisoner chosen to travel through time: a man with a powerful visual memory that returns repeated to a memory of the observation platform at Orly airport.

This short, which director Chris Marker himself referred to as a photo novel because of its use of a succession of black and white still photos with voiceover, turns science fiction into an adult genre capable of generating philosophical reflections. La Jetée combines love stories, futurist dystopias and time travel, all accompanied by an excellent soundtrack and an aesthetic that forces the viewer to make an effort to understand and enjoy this great film.

 

Je t’aime, je t’aime (I love you, I love you)
Alain Resnais
1968 / France / 35 mm / 94 min / Original version with Catalan subtitles

Following a failed suicide attempt and difficult relationships, Claude is recruited for a pioneering experiment: to be the first human to journey to the past, a unique happening. The calculations have been made, the space prepared, and mice have even made the journey, but something goes wrong and the protagonist is trapped, randomly, repetitively reliving events of his past, unable to return definitively to his present.