La Jetée (1962)

Jean Négroni: Narrator

Quotes 

• Narrator : Nothing distinguishes memories from ordinary moments. Only later do they become memorable by the scars they leave.

• Narrator : This time he is close to her, he speaks to her. She welcomes him without surprise. They are without memories, without plans. Time builds itself painlessly around them. Their only landmarks are the flavour of the moment they are living and the markings on the walls.

• Narrator : They begin again. The man doesn't die, nor does he go mad. He suffers. They continue.

• Narrator : [referring to The Woman's face]  That face he had seen was to be the only peacetime image to survive the war. Had he really seen it? Or had he invented that tender moment to prop up the madness to come?

• Narrator : He recited his lesson: because humanity had survived, it could not refuse to its own past the means of its survival. This sophism was taken for Fate in disguise.

• Narrator : It was the starting point for a whole series of tests, in which he would meet her at different times. Sometimes he finds her in front of their markings. She welcomes him in a simple way. She calls him her Ghost.

• Narrator : [regarding time travel in order to save the present]  But the human mind balked at the idea. To wake up in another age meant to be born again as an adult. The shock would be too great.

• Narrator : The Future was better protected than the Past. After more, painful tries, he eventually caught some waves of the world to come.