Visionary filmmaker Chris Marker creates a portrait of ever encroaching globalization in this 100 minute odyssey between the 'two poles of survival'.

Probably one of the greatest 'avant-garde' films of all time, don't let its classification dissuade you. This is a very simple film with a very simple message: though time changes, what nourishes humanity remains constant, namely love, memory, hope, understanding, recognition and belonging.

The only frustrating thing about this film is that one viewing is not enough. This is a work you will cherish re-watching for years to come.

Direct cinema science-fiction set on Planet Earth.

When is a documentary not a documentary? SANS SOLEIL is a film comprising 'real' images, narrated with 'real' observations. The subject-matter is Japan, post-modernism, the erasion of memory, the flattening-out of history, decentring, surface, pastiche. It records life-styles, trends, habits, rites, artistic movements with the rigour of an anthropologist. It is a film about travel: throughout the world, throughout time. It is science fiction (Terry Gilliam's TWELVE MONKEYS fleshes out an anecdote here). It is a Borgesian fantasy, (the filmmaker is actually a fictional creation , Sandor Krasna). To call it a documentary, or even a film, would be like calling the Sistine Chapel a ceiling.

A film I really wanted to like, given the acclaim and the positive opinion of so many people I respect, but one that fell short for me. The concept was unique and I wish I could say it was praiseworthy, but it too often felt voyeuristic and culturally condescending, and that was a real turn-off. The narration didn't add anything, and at times got so banal and pseudo-intellectual that I felt like I might enjoy the film more with the volume off. "Perhaps they read only in the street, or perhaps they just pretend to read-these yellow men," Marker (through his narrator) says. About video games, there's this: "Perhaps because he (Pac-Man) is the most perfect graphic metaphor of man's fate." Good grief. It was like being trapped in a room with someone showing a really long home movie and droning on as the footage veered randomly from place to place. I would have loved to hear the voices of and viewpoints of the people he filmed, or something that gave me real insight into their cultures. Also, I have no idea why Marker felt a need to show the gruesome (and extended) killing of a giraffe, but he did.