Lost in Translation

French being my first language, I have decided to re-watch “La Jetée” and compare and contrast my experiences, the same way we compared the digital and film version in class.

I cannot even begin to explain how unbelievably different my experience was watching the movie in French. It is astonishing to me how the same movie can have such a different impact on the viewer with only one change in the variables in this case being the language. The music was the same, the audio cues are the same and the images are all the same yet the dialogue seemed to touch me infinitely more. I somehow felt like the French dialogue brought so much more to the movie. The voice was soothing with a strong Parisian accent, but at the same time cold and slightly unsettling.

When I watched the movie in class it seemed like the images were chasing the dialogue, as if the pictures were being jerked and then explained. The French version on the other hand flows with poetic elegance. The dialogue gives it depth and warmth and the silences and whispers give it that cool eyrie feel. Upon my first watch I was curious as to why the director had chosen to do a photo essay rather than a film. After having watched the original however it seemed so obvious to me. The man’s fixation on the scaring memory on la Jetée was indeed an image or still of that moment burned in his mind. It only made sense for him to relive the past in these sorts of time warped images. His confusion as to who he is, where he came from and what the meaning of his necklace was, also made sense at once. How can he know these things if he technically isn’t born and the war hasn’t started yet.

As I kept watching the French version I seemed to find meaning in the small details. The first thing that struck me was the still of the woman’s face when the man is shot down in the openning. She seemed to have an expression of longing, yet completely unfazed by her surroundings. When we see her once again in the closing scene, her hand is on her face, but her expression does not hint towards any sort of shock or horror. Right when the still starts to dissolve he narrator says quite blatantly “ils compris qu’on ne s’évade pas du temps”. Her expression still rattles me, why did she react this way? Maybe she actually understood the meaning of their relationship, that there was indeed something horribly wrong. Perhaps she was awaiting this moment, and simply taking a breath pondering his twisted fate. Perhaps she was a part of this plot all along, perhaps she was a pawn in the post apocalyptic experiments too. I cannot be sure but her expression is haunting.

WHAT ARE YOU THINKING WOMAN!

WHAT DOES THIS LOOK IN YOUR EYES MEAN!

She is a puzzle and I love to hate it! 

 Another ingenious detail was in the title of the film. La Jetée is a homophone for a variety of different things. The first homophone being “La j’étais” which means there I was. Also Jetée (Jeter) is actually a French verb, which means to throw away. The clever title suggests that he was throwing away the opportunity of the future for the memory of the past. The term jeter is also used in various classical ballet movements the most famous being the ‘grand Jetée’. This move involves the dancer taking a large leap into the air in a perfect split. The man had 2 options to go into the future or go back to the past and he chose to take the leap to “la J’étais” (there I was).