Sans Soleil - Unsichtbare Sonne

Japan, Africa, and various other corners of the world. But also, France, the best of its culture and thinking. The Annales school of history gave the world the concept of "longue durée," which looks beneath the surface of political turbulence to what is important, the "long-lasting" structures of human life. Marker also pays attention to banal moments and traditions, in which there is more hidden than in superficial "grand histories." Even ethnographic passages (including the name Levi-Strauss) in Sunless, and perhaps most importantly, a piece of beautiful avant-garde filmmaking with a multitude of experiments with image and sound. It is no coincidence that there is also a brief mention of Godard in the film. If The Pier was an essay on the impossibility of escaping time, then Sunless is an essay on the impossibility of stopping time from slipping away. Time that has passed can perhaps be captured in memory, but it escapes our control with the same inevitability as what memory should have preserved, and thus there may be only one thing left - to capture time on a film strip. This also does not help, but thanks to attempts like those of Chris Marker, we can add this author to the greats of French culture. (19.09.2014)

Chris Marker probably won't be my favorite author, although he is definitely a unique creator who has something to offer. His perspective is truly impossible to imitate easily, just like the style in which he films. Although it may seem like a documentary at first glance, there is a clear interconnectedness here that is associated with Marker's personality and therefore unique. (14.12.2015)