The movie La Jetee was one of the most unique movies I have seen. The fact that for the most part the entire movie is all still shots put together with just music and narration shows and incredible challenge for the filmmaker as far as production is concerned. In order to put together at 30 minute movie made entirely of stills that form the plot of a movie, none the less the plot line of a time traveling science fiction movie, is really incredible. The movie flows and for the most part is somewhat understandable. It impresses the time to take thousands of still photos and edit and move them around to create a plot. An issue with the movie I had was that if it were drawn out to much longer it would have been hard to follow and combination of no dialogue and live action would wear on the audience. The director made the film to an ideal amount of time. Overall, the film was very interesting and it was a very different style to do the film in.
As for the horror genre in general, I am not the biggest fan. Sometimes I appreciate the unintentional comedy of horror films and I am also a fan of horror films that have comedic elements. One of the best re watching experiences I have had is with Scream. What I remembers about Scream as a could was it was very violent and I wasn't really allowed to see. But watching it 10 years later, I realized it was a really entertaining movie that pokes fun at the genre during it, definitely something I did not pick up on as a kid.
I agree that the lack of dialogue in combination with the still shots was mentally draining to viewers. Maybe it was just me (I get sleepy in the afternoons), but I definitely had to work very hard to stay interested in the film. The subtitles and the voice of the narrator droning in the background likely also contributed to this. Another reason La Jetee was not one of my favorite films was that I predicted the ending within the first 3 minutes. I think that the score and the narration placed an inordinate emphasis on the fact that he witnessed a man dying as a child and then when the time-travel aspect of the film was introduced, it seemed to be a pretty obvious connection. Time travel movies do intrigue me though and their themes seem to stay with me, so maybe that was another contributing factor.
ReplyDeleteRandom, but if anyone has seen The Butterfly Effect, I think that this movie and its stance on time travel is fairly unique and realistic - as realistic as a movie with both Ashton Kutcher and time travel can be.