The Temporalities of the Narrative Slide
Motion Film
Liv Hausken
The Mexican director Jonás Cuarón’s first feature filmAño Uña(Year of the
Nail,)isa-minute film narrative composed of still photographs with an
entire range of filmic sounds edited into a narrative that spans a year in the lives
of Molly (Eireann Harper), a-year-old American traveling through Mexico,
and Diego (Diego Cataño), a typically and perpetually horny-year-old–na-
ïve, romantic and troubled by a persistent ingrown toenail. The son of Alfonso
Cuarón, Jonás Cuarón’s film has been said to draw on many notions from his
father’s work (Y Tu Mamá Tambiénin particular) and the broader context of
recent Mexican cinema; a cross-generational relationship, the trials of puberty
and the fleeting moments that shape young lives. It has been characterized as a
“piece of work that resembles the exotic child from a union betweenLa Jetée
andY Tu Mamá También”.The reference to Chris Marker’s filmLa Jetée
() is due to the stills. It as been suggested that it is“inspired in style if not
content byLa Jetée”,and even claimed to be“La Jetee-style”.
Chris Marker’sLa Jetée(The Jetty) has become a cult classic, inspiring var-
ious tributes including Terry Gilliam’sMonkeys(). Set in a bunker in a
devastated Paris in the aftermath of World War III, it tells the tale of a man, a
slave, exposed to experiments into time travel, sent back and forth, in and out of
the present time of the diegetic world, into the past and eventually into the fu-
ture, to replenish the decreasing stocks of food, medicine and energies of the
present world. The story is told using black-and-white stills, voice-over, music,
and minimal sound effects, including a distant, whispering sound of a mutter-
ing German dialogue between the scientists (the men conducting the experi-
ments).
La Jetéeis often referred to whenever there are sequences of stills in a film,
like, for instance, in Ingmar Bergman’sScener ur ett äktenskap(Scenes from
a Marriage,) or Pernille Fischer Christensen’sEn Soap(ASoap,), to
mention just two. Briefly put,La Jetéeis not only the title of Marker’ssci-fi
film, butLa Jetéealso appears to be emblematic of a film style where photo-
graphic stills are used to compose a fiction film, the“La Jetee-style”. I will sug-
gest that we use the termslide-motion film.