Sans Soleil (1983) on Netflix
NR19831h 40mDocumentaryDrama
A woman reads letters supposedly sent to her by the cameraman Sandor Krasna. The images, mostly from Japan and Guinea-Bissau, accompany meditations on time and memory.
- Netflix4.1/5
- IMDb7.7/1013,261 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes88%
Trailer
Plot summary
A woman reads aloud letters that were supposedly sent to her by a cameraman, Sandor Krasna. Its words and images form a meditation on human memory and on how a remembered image loses its context, which shapes the way people perceive personal and global histories. Most of the documentary footage was shot in Japan and Guinea-Bissau, and other scenes come from Cape Verde, Iceland, Paris and San Francisco. Stock footage, clips from Japanese movies and television, and excerpts and stills from other films are woven through.
Cast
- Bin Akaoas Self
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Sans Soleil (1983)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Sans Soleil was assembled largely in the 1970s, when Chris Marker was part of a political commune and preferred to downplay his authorial signature. The end credit "Conception and editing: Chris Marker" is the only indication the film is his.
- Chris Marker shot the original documentary footage with a 16mm Beaulieu silent film camera and a non-sync portable tape recorder, so the film contains no synchronous sound; some stock footage shots were colourized with an EMS Spectre video synthesizer.
- The film's title comes from Modest Mussorgsky's song cycle Sunless, but only a brief passage of "Sur le fleuve", the cycle's last song, which concerns itself with death, is heard in the film.
- English rock band Kasabian used a sound clip from the documentary at the beginning of their song "West Ryder Silver Bullet", on their 2009 album West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum.
