| Narrative Feature | Example | Your own example |
| Establishing protagonist – what information do we find out? How is it conveyed? | Introduced only in narration – first in third person as “a man marked by an image”; then in first person -memory of incident at the airport. We don’t see him until the first experiment is shown. This shows how core the act of remembering is to his identity – indeed we find out very little about him (he remains nameless) apart from his ‘remembering’ (even when he is travelling in time). | When establishing the protagonist, we are told he is not the first Guinea pig and others have gone “mad” when selecting their next victim, they chose a prisoner with a very memorable and clear imagination helping them when trying to time travel. It says “he was frightened” as he had heard past stories about what it does to people. The whole scene when first addressing the protagonist is used with a close-up which really catches his emotions. |
| Establishing other characters – what information do we find out? How is it conveyed? | The Woman is the first person we see (“the only image to survive the war”) – and she is defined only by the fact the narrator remembers her. Feminist critics may comment on the fact she barely seems to exist outside the experiences of the narrator and her growing belief in him. | The scientists are first established at the 4:00-4:45 mark, the voice over is describing what they do (taking prisoners and taking them for experimental reasons with time travelling) it clearly describes that their experiments have not worked yet and made people “mad”. |
| Establishing location (time and place) – what information do we find out? How is it conveyed? | We were told immediately that the location was Paris. The bombed-out wreckage of the city (real WW2 images) doesn’t immediately establish that this is the future until the narrator mentions radiation. The underground location beneath the Palais de Chaillot is shown by intercut images of broken cherubs and other sculptures. | When establishing the location, when introducing the film production and directors and other people who were involved with the process there is a wide and long shot image of an airport however, when establishing the key location (the jetty) it shows us around three still images of it, the children watching the planes departing, the air hostess walking to the planes. This is when we see the main location of where the plot happens. |
| Creating Enigmas – what are they? How are they created? | The image the narrator obsesses over is the central enigma: who is the man he witnesses dying? How does he die? Who is the woman? The still images and voiceover powerfully evoke the nature of memory. | What other questions are posed throughout the narrative? Do the women know he is going to die? Does he know that if he picks the past he will die? How did his younger self see him die? |
| Narrative binary oppositions | The ‘Living Present’ vs Past/Future. As the film progresses, what constitutes the ‘present’ (for the protagonist) seems to shift from his dystopian subterranean society to the ‘past’ of pre-apocalypse Paris. This is conveyed by the faster rhythm of the montage and the sequence (18:00-18:49) where the images almost become like traditional cinema. | This starts off with the women breaking the still images and seen moving. However, this happens in the past (his time travelling) and completely jumps to a worm’s view shot of the scientist quickly adjust the audience mind between past and present day. |
| Crisis – how was this conveyed? | Is it the first experiment? The moment the man spots the woman from the airport? Or is it when the future society offers him the chance to escape to the future? | What do you think is the crisis point? How does this affect the rest of the narrative? I think the first experiment is when he is when he spots the women from the airport. His memory recognizes her and now his realisation that he can pick the future or past and he picks the past shows a true reflection into the first obstacle he faced was seeing her and wanting to stay. |
| Resolution – is it a closed or open narrative? | The narrative is closed – but it is also in a loop: the narrator is both the dying man and the child watching the scene. This ‘time paradox’ has inspired films as diverse as The Terminator and Looper (as well as 12 Monkeys which is almost a remake). | What do you think about the end? Is it closed – or endlessly circular? I think the ending the ending is closed as you can easily gather that the man getting shot at the end was him meaning that when he was younger, he watched himself being shot. I think if you follow the story line and know that the reason he was killed is because picked the wrong time travel (picked the past not future). |