sans soleil (1983)

pure assemblage

Sans Soleil (1983) is an experimental documentary film by Chris Marker. Opening with a shot of three Icelandic children holding hands, the narrator informs us it had to be put by itself at the start of the film, since they could not find another shot that it would link to. To me, this is the clearest depiction of film as an assemblage: documentary footage taken all over the world is brought together to create new linkages and meanings. Many different kinds of images are used throughout the film: ethnographic material, electronically distorted video, even footage from Vertigo (1958). It all contributes to a complicated assemblage which disrupts natural perception in a spatial, temporal and aesthetic sense, gesturing towards an alternative mode of being in the process.