LA JETEE / TWELVE MONKEYS

Double Bill

Time:
11.00pm
Date: 01-02-02
Venue:
Curzon SOHO
Director: Chris Marker / Terry Gilliam
Country: France / USA

Runtime: 29 / 129
Colour: bw / colour
Language: English




Twelve Monkeys
An unknown and lethal virus wiped out five billion people in 1996. Only 1% of the population has survived by the year 2035, and is forced to live underground.

A convict (James Cole) reluctantly volunteers to be sent back in time to 1996 to gather information about the origin of the epidemic (who he's told was spread by a mysterious "Army of the Twelve Monkeys") and locate the virus before it mutates so that scientists can study it. Cole is mistakenly sent to 1990, six years earlier than expected, arrested and locked up in a mental institution, where he meets Dr. Kathryn Railly, a psychiatrist, and Jeffrey Goines, the insane son of a famous scientist and virus expert.

The screenplay, by David and Janet Peoples, was inspired by the 1962 photo-roman La Jetee.

La Jetee is a 28-minute movie that uses black and white stills with a sombre voice-over to tell its tale. The protagonist is a man whose retention of a single, vague childhood memory (that of witnessing a murder on the jetty at Orly airport) is the basis for his being chosen to travel back in time. His journey leads him towards an enigmatic and paradoxical destiny.

SCI-FI-LONDON presents the two films together for the first time in the UK.