Sans Soleil

Mar 2, 1983

1h 40m

★ 7.4

He wrote me...

Overview

A woman narrates the thoughts of a world traveler, meditations on time and memory expressed in words and images from places as far-flung as Japan, Guinea-Bissau, Iceland, and San Francisco.

Genres

Documentary

Production Companies

Argos films

Sans Soleil Trailers

Cast

Narrator (voice)

Florence Delay

Self (archive footage)

Amílcar Cabral

Self

Arielle Dombasle

Self (uncredited)

Bin Akao

Self / Deep Purple Singer (uncredited)

David Coverdale

Self (uncredited)

Chris Marker

To popularize the idea of automobile travel, Ford Motor Company produced Ford Educational Weekly, a film magazine distributed free to theaters. One 1916 series featured "Visits to American Cities." In this episode, Los Angeles is featured at the very beginning of the boom created by oil, movies and aircraft. On the occasion of its centennial in 1953, Ford donated its film to the National Archives and Records Service; this copy derives from a fine grain master printed from the Archive's preservation negative. Music by Frederick Hodges.

7.9

Koyaanisqatsi

Apr 27, 1983

Takes us to locations all around the US and shows us the heavy toll that modern technology is having on humans and the earth. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and the exceptional music by Philip Glass.

No Image Available

3.5

Circumcision

Jan 1, 1949

Rites and operation of the circumcision of thirty Songhai children on the Niger. Material of this film has been used to make "Les Fils de l'Eau".

0.0

Melodies of the mountains

Jan 1, 2006

Film about the singing and dancing culture of the Ingush people

4.0

A Native Street in India

Jun 2, 1906

Early film of a crowded street scene in an unidentified Indian city.

No Image Available

0.0

The Coach Travellers

Jan 1, 1965

Coach passengers give their reasons for preferring that type of transport. A group of ramblers visit the Welsh mountains; an angler and his family spend a peaceful day by a country river; a family goes to the seaside; some students visit Oxford during a music festival.

No Image Available

0.0

Three Is Company

Jan 1, 1959

An American couple tour Britain with a teenage girl, visiting London, Canterbury, Cambridge, the West Country, Caernarvon, etc.

7.6

Microcosmos

Sep 6, 1996

A documentary of insect life in meadows and ponds, using incredible close-ups, slow motion, and time-lapse photography. It includes bees collecting nectar, ladybugs eating mites, snails mating, spiders wrapping their catch, a scarab beetle relentlessly pushing its ball of dung uphill, endless lines of caterpillars, an underwater spider creating an air bubble to live in, and a mosquito hatching.

No Image Available

0.0

The Travel Game

Jan 1, 1958

A light and somewhat satirical look at the problems and pleasures of Continental holiday travel. A passenger on the Hook Continental Express from Liverpool St. imagines the possible destinations of his fellow passengers.

7.0

Mr. Smith Goes to Tokyo

Jan 1, 2009

When Tomoko finds some messages for a 'Mr Smith' on a lost mobile phone, she finds herself on an 'Alice in Wonderland' journey through Tokyo's boulevards and back alleys. From the tyranny of symmetry in soaring office blocks - to buildings that look like space-ships, this creative documentary shows us the city's soul.

6.0

Pick up the Wind

Apr 11, 2021

A short film following Anthony, a young child from the small, rural town of San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba. We see him in different moments of his daily life as he interacts with different forms of environmental, familial, and social influences. While Anthony displays contradictory traits of creativity, destruction, rigidity, and tenderness as he interacts with his external and internal worlds, we see a story built from the the multidimensionality of Anthony's layered personality as a young man.

6.8

Olympia Part One: Festival of the Nations

Apr 21, 1938

Starting with a long and lyrical overture, evoking the origins of the Olympic Games in ancient Greece, Riefenstahl covers twenty-one athletic events in the first half of this two-part love letter to the human body and spirit, culminating with the marathon, where Jesse Owens became the first track and field athlete to win four gold medals in a single Olympics.

6.7

Olympia Part Two: Festival of Beauty

Jun 2, 1938

Part two of Leni Riefenstahl's monumental examination of the 1938 Olympic Games, the cameras leave the main stadium and venture into the many halls and fields deployed for such sports as fencing, polo, cycling, and the modern pentathlon, which was won by American Glenn Morris.

0.0

Venetian Shores

Jan 1, 1914

Blissful scenes of tourists arriving by boat and then sea bathing on a beach in the Venetian lagoon.

7.2

The Endless Summer

Jun 15, 1966

Bruce Brown's The Endless Summer is one of the first and most influential surf movies of all time. The film documents American surfers Mike Hynson and Robert August as they travel the world during California’s winter (which, back in 1965 was off-season for surfing) in search of the perfect wave and ultimately, an endless summer.

7.5

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City

Sep 23, 1927

A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.