Synopsis

Chris Marker, filmmaker, poet, novelist, photographer, editor, and now videographer and digital multimedia artist, has been challenging moviegoers, philosophers, and himself for years with his complex queries about time, memory, and the rapid advancement of life on this planet. Sans Soleil is his mind-bending free-form travelogue that journeys from Africa to Japan.

This screening is part of SCREEN TO SCREEN, shown in conjunction with the exhibition Digital Capture: Southern California and the Pixel-Based Image World

“Screen” can be defined as a flat surface, a verb, a barrier, a pseudonym, a cover, or a tool. The films in this series are, in general, unified by their inventive and prescient explorations of technology, and by the screen in particular. These films examine and imagine what changes in human relationships are a result of technology’s position within them. The screen is now where life often takes place—films that explore this condition constitute their own genre. Each screening will be introduced by organizer and PhD candidate Sarah Grace Faulk, and a discussion will be moderated afterward for select screenings. This screening is supported by UC Riverside’s College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Science (CHASS) Dean’s Office and the Center for Ideas and Society. Additional support is provided by Department of the History of Art at UC Riverside.

Trailer

Film Details

Director: Chris Marker
Studio: Janus Films
Running Time: 103 minutes
Country: France
Release Year: 1983
Rated: Unrated

Reviews

“The French film essayist Chris Marker (1921-2012) likely left his biggest pop-cultural footprint with La Jetée, a half-hour short whose time-travel conceit inspired Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys. “But Sans Soleil, Marker’s unclassifiable 1983 feature, neither fiction nor nonfiction, shows that raw documentary materials can be rendered into something as disorienting and chronologically malleable as fantasy. (Marker credits himself with “conception and editing,” but not direction.) The film belongs on a list of movies that ought to be seen and debated even if you don’t comprehend them.” – The New York Times