The Documentary Film Film Studies 385

Prof. Julian Cornell

SANS SOLEIL Cristohper Ramos Flores

Chris Markers Sans soleil was a very interesting way of filmmaking that made me

wonder once again what defines a documentary film, and at the same time made it very

clear to me that there are many ways of speaking about the reality in a film.

The first thing that I find interesting about the movie is the fact that it doesnt seem to be

about anything in specific. It is supposed to be about some ideas for a future film, which

very soon we discover is the film were watching. However, the way the images are

presented with a voice over thats reading a letters from somebody else is the first thing

that puts us, the audience, in a quite uncomfortable position. Its not like some other

films where we see an image we can easily understand or are guided by a voice over. In

this case we dont even receive the facts from the person who has them; we hear voice

of a woman reading a letter of the stories of some other people who live among the

facts presented. This means we receive the facts through a series of filters. We feel (at

least I did) completely detached from the experience of what is being told. We feel as

strange to the facts as we feel from a third cousin whom weve never met. It seems as if

Marker doesnt want his audience to identify themselves with any kind of message that

he might be giving, at least no the same way we clearly understand it in other movies.

However, this foreignness forces us to find meanings by filling up gaps with our own

experiences and cultural background, almost in a gestaltic way, by utilizing the

somewhat metaphoric images and texts presented, and forcing us to find relations

between them.

In this film we see images and stories about many people and places like Japan,

France, Iceland and Guinea-bissau. Nevertheless it seems to be more of a

ethnographic study of human mind and a some sort of universal culture (civilization),

rather than a study of the people of those places. Memory takes a very important place

in the film, and it is discussed how the memory of an event does not necessarily carries

all facts or sentiments. There are some very striking ideas about memory on this film, for

example the scene where tourists are taking photos on the same spot where years ago

some girls had committed suicide. There we see that the memory of that story lingers on

but not the brutal sentiment of its tragic facts. In the same way, he plays with the idea of

history, time and memory by making clear references to past films like Hitchcoks

Vertigo and his own film La jete. He is clearly stating that there is more to the nature of

memory that what we usually see, in the words of the fictitious filmmaker (Markers own

words) who wrote the letter being read: We do not remember. We rewrite memory as

much as history is written.

Trying to understand the fact that he is using a collection of images of many sources, I

find myself intrigued by Markers approach to filmmaking as a historical document. In the

film we see a constant juxtaposition of the ancient culture and XXth century Japan as a

repetitive motif. He explains a few traditions and the events that carry on with those

traditions, and at the same time he shows the new [probable future] traditions. For

example he shows the phenomenon of the self called baby martians, a group of kids in

Japan who gather every weekend to dance in a public space with the hope of being

looked at by people, but clearly placing themselves in a position of rejection to the fact

that people is looking at them. In juxtaposition, Marker presents the old ceremony of the

dolls, to which girls bring their broken dolls to be burned in sacrifice-like act to the god of

compassion. He also wonders if the faces of the people who saw the kamikaze pilots

looked like the faces of the audience to this ceremony. He is making a clear connection

between the old ceremony, the kamikaze and the present Japan. And if that wasnt

enough, in the next scene we are taken to Guinea-Bissau where we see a few girls and

their dolls. Is he suggesting that the associations we build between the history of a

nation or between two different nations can be simply rewritten, molded, destroyed and

rebuilt? Is he using this collection of images, this collage to represent reality? to

represent a collective memory? an individual or massive culture?

Finally I would like to address the predispositions we have and the implied meanings he

builds, tears down and rebuilds many times throughout the movie by playing with a

cultural background that we all share, because I dont think he left the choice of any

image or sound to chance. There is a constant reference to new technologies (not only

in the images but also in their treatment) which matches perfectly with the hyper-

technologic world of Japan. At the same time we are constantly listening to very well

known classical pieces of music like Mussorgskys Sans soleil and Jean Jacques

Sibelius Valse triste which are also treated in a way that obscures them and makes

them sound as foreign as the third cousins. There is a content implied and tied to our

cultural background when we see and hear the treatment that has been done to these

elements, however he manages to use those elements to rewrite our own connection to

our backgrounds, to our personal history, to our memory. Once again I end up asking

myself if this is a documentary about real facts or if it is an essay about shared history/

memory, time and perception of reality.