San Soleil

San Soleil was a very interesting documentary. At first it was very hard to understand, but now that i think about it the main focus was on memory. It was a woman narrating travels, although it seemed as if she was very disoriented. The story went from Japan, to animals doing very dirty things. It was kind of hard to follow.

A lot of the time the images that were playing in the background did not match the voice over of the woman. It makes you think was this done on purpose, for a specific meaning. Was Marker trying to say that at times our memory of the words that were said do not fit the specific images we associate them with, or rather that we misconstrue memories to match the words we want them to?

Another interesting fact was that Marker used Japan as a main focus. Why would Japan need to be a focus of his documentary? Possibly it is because Japan's culture is so different than that of the Americans, or the French. Japan is not often studied openly and there is little information about the festivals like the ones shown in the documentary.

The narrator in San Soleil is a female. For many documentaries the narrator is a male, with a very strong voice. The female in this film also had a very strong voice, but it was also calming at the same time. It was as if he used this for a reason, to make you really listen and think about the things this woman was saying.