Marker's breakthrough was this half-hour short, which remains a
landmark in cinema history. At once a post-apocalyptic science
fiction story, a romance, and an essay on time, memory and fate, it's
entirely made of stills except for one haunting sequence - but
brilliantly sound-tracked, giving it a hypnotic narrative flow.
Gilliam borrowed the idea of a man being sent back in time to a pivotal
moment in Twelve Monkeys, but got nowhere near the strange, compelling
poetry of the original. Not a film that is easily forgotten.
