Sans Soleil

Looking for Narrative? in Vast Spaces?

The thesis of this essay is to attempt to grasp Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil (1983) and to independently derive its thesis.  A survey of Sans Soleil occurs despite efforts to keep content theoretical.  Marker’s video essay is presented through a series of letters written by Sandor Krasna and added to the soundtrack by Alexandra Stewart’s voiceover.  Montage segments in Sans Soleil form a loose narrative with breaks in spatio-temporal continuity that often resemble news / archival footage.   A few themes juxtapose historical black and white footage to more recent color footage.  Sans Soleil images occur in theme-based segments, in contrast to random reports of newsflash.[1]

 

[1] Historical events for the year 1983 by month  – http://www.eventshistory.com/date/1983/