La Jetée (1962) is Chris Marker’s landmark science-fiction film, composed almost entirely of still photographs. Set in a post-apocalyptic future, it follows a man subjected to time-travel experiments in the aftermath of a nuclear war, exploring memory, desire and the fragility of human experience. A story that later inspired 12 Monkeys by Terry Gilliam (1995).
Commissioned by Soundscreen Film Festival in 2020, Alessandro Baris’ live score for La Jetée explores the film’s central themes of memory, time and perception through a delicate interplay of ambient textures, silence, melody and rhythm. Conceived as a parallel narrative rather than a traditional accompaniment, the soundtrack inhabits the spaces between Marker’s iconic still images, expanding their emotional resonance and transforming the film into an immersive meditation on absence, remembrance and temporal dislocation.