With or Without the Sun

The exhibition With or Without the Sun explores, with Chris Marker’s seminal essay-film Sans Soleil as its reference point, the development and legacy of the essayistic tradition of filmmaking, both in the west and in Japan. The essay-film as developed by Marker and like-minded filmmakers such as Alain Resnais and Agnes Varda, is a genre that deliberately navigates in and expands the territory between fiction and documentary, overlaying the techniques of film and literary essay.

While the camera records the world, the filmmaker’s voice probes the subject matter, reflecting on it and on him/herself without necessarily reaching a conclusion. This method has from the 1960s until today appealed to western filmmakers when approaching Japanese culture. The great influence of Sans Soleil as well as Marker’s lifelong interest in Japanese culture, have come to a certain extent to frame the approach of the essay-film when it turns its attention to Japan, but does not serve as the only definition of what has become a multifaceted genre. In its nature investigative and explorative, it has developed in a number of directions, for example The Eternal Virgin by Jorge Suárez-Quiñones Rivas uses images from the films of Ozu Yasujirō to interrogate the status of the images themselves.

Kilde: SixtyEight Art Institute