1
00:01:53,613 --> 00:01:59,555
This is the story of a man,
marked by an image of his childhood.

2
00:02:00,391 --> 00:02:02,678
The violent scene that upsets him,

3
00:02:02,687 --> 00:02:07,893
and whose meaning
he was to grasp only years later,

4
00:02:07,900 --> 00:02:11,019
happened on the main jetty at Orly,
the Paris airport,

5
00:02:11,027 --> 00:02:14,146
sometime before
the outbreak of World War lll.

6
00:02:24,367 --> 00:02:25,981
Orly.  Sunday.

7
00:02:25,990 --> 00:02:30,212
Parents used to take their children
there to watch the departing planes.

8
00:02:30,226 --> 00:02:33,963
On this particular Sunday,
the child whose story we are telling

9
00:02:34,062 --> 00:02:37,086
was bound to remember the frozen sun,

10
00:02:37,138 --> 00:02:39,640
the setting at the end of the jetty,

11
00:02:39,645 --> 00:02:42,302
and a woman's face.

12
00:02:44,175 --> 00:02:47,307
Nothing sorts out memories
from ordinary moments.

13
00:02:47,720 --> 00:02:52,724
Later on they do claim remembrance
when they show their scars.

14
00:02:53,767 --> 00:02:58,464
That face he had seen was
to be the only peacetime
image to survive the war.

15
00:02:58,874 --> 00:03:01,637
Had he really seen it?

16
00:03:01,793 --> 00:03:06,905
Or had he invented that tender moment
to prop up the madness to come?

17
00:03:07,840 --> 00:03:11,494
The sudden roar, the woman's gesture,

18
00:03:11,495 --> 00:03:16,701
the crumpling body, and the
cries of the crowd on the
jetty blurred by fear.

19
00:03:18,840 --> 00:03:22,956
Later, he knew he had seen a man die.

20
00:03:24,522 --> 00:03:27,652
And sometime after
came the destruction of Paris.

21
00:04:40,782 --> 00:04:41,826
Many died.

22
00:04:42,711 --> 00:04:44,797
Some believed themselves
to be victors.

23
00:04:45,317 --> 00:04:47,605
Others were taken prisoner.

24
00:04:47,819 --> 00:04:51,567
The survivors settled beneath
Chaillot, in an underground
network of galleries.

25
00:04:55,012 --> 00:05:00,846
Above ground, Paris, as most
of the world, was uninhabitable,

26
00:05:01,216 --> 00:05:03,351
riddled with radioactivity.

27
00:05:04,188 --> 00:05:07,318
The victors stood guard
over an empire of rats.

28
00:05:11,068 --> 00:05:13,463
The prisoners were
subjected to experiments,

29
00:05:13,471 --> 00:05:16,591
apparently of great concern
to those who conducted them.

30
00:05:50,110 --> 00:05:54,226
The outcome
was a disappointment for some -

31
00:05:54,592 --> 00:05:56,360
- death for others -

32
00:05:56,886 --> 00:05:58,296
- and for others yet, madness.

33
00:06:39,890 --> 00:06:44,325
One day they came to select a new
guinea pig from among the prisoners.

34
00:06:45,208 --> 00:06:46,773
He was the man whose
story we are telling.

35
00:07:18,048 --> 00:07:19,613
He was frightened.

36
00:07:23,783 --> 00:07:29,415
He had heard about the
Head Experimenter. He was prepared
to meet Dr. Frankenstein,

37
00:07:29,515 --> 00:07:31,388
or the Mad Scientist.

38
00:07:32,122 --> 00:07:34,102
lnstead, he met a reasonable man

39
00:07:34,206 --> 00:07:38,477
who explained calmly that
the human race was doomed.

40
00:07:39,209 --> 00:07:40,989
Space was off-limits.

41
00:07:41,660 --> 00:07:44,637
The only hope for
survival lay in Time.

42
00:07:44,768 --> 00:07:46,712
A loophole in Time,

43
00:07:47,447 --> 00:07:51,621
and then maybe
it would be possible to reach food,

44
00:07:51,720 --> 00:07:55,266
medicine, sources of energy.

45
00:07:56,308 --> 00:08:01,208
This was the aim of the experiments:
to send emissaries into Time,

46
00:08:01,468 --> 00:08:04,753
to summon the Past and Future
to the aid of the Present.

47
00:08:05,273 --> 00:08:07,882
But the human mind
balked at the idea.

48
00:08:08,297 --> 00:08:14,132
To wake up in another age
meant to be born again as an adult.

49
00:08:14,344 --> 00:08:16,324
The shock would be too great.

50
00:08:17,262 --> 00:08:21,745
Having only sent lifeless or
insentient bodies through
different zones of Time,

51
00:08:21,954 --> 00:08:27,160
the inventors where now
concentrating on men given
to very strong mental images.

52
00:08:27,166 --> 00:08:30,500
lf they were able to conceive
or dream another time,

53
00:08:30,509 --> 00:08:33,627
perhaps they would be
able to live in it.

54
00:08:35,925 --> 00:08:38,950
The camp police spied even on dreams.

55
00:08:39,574 --> 00:08:42,074
This man was selected
from among a thousand

56
00:08:42,179 --> 00:08:45,097
for his obsession
with an image from the past.

57
00:09:34,930 --> 00:09:40,565
Nothing else, at first,
but stripping out the
present, and its racks.

58
00:09:42,960 --> 00:09:44,523
They begin again.

59
00:10:19,759 --> 00:10:22,939
The man doesn't die,
nor does he go mad.

60
00:10:23,408 --> 00:10:25,186
He suffers.

61
00:10:25,284 --> 00:10:26,743
They continue.

62
00:11:06,361 --> 00:11:10,535
On the tenth day,
images begin to ooze,

63
00:11:10,739 --> 00:11:12,092
like confessions.

64
00:11:12,927 --> 00:11:15,536
A peacetime morning.

65
00:11:18,140 --> 00:11:21,475
A peacetime bedroom,
a real bedroom.

66
00:11:23,563 --> 00:11:25,128
Real children.

67
00:11:28,776 --> 00:11:30,339
Real birds.

68
00:11:32,945 --> 00:11:34,510
Real cats.

69
00:11:38,159 --> 00:11:39,723
Real graves.

70
00:11:43,006 --> 00:11:45,971
On the sixteenth day
he is on the jetty at Orly.

71
00:11:46,124 --> 00:11:47,167
Empty.

72
00:11:49,731 --> 00:11:54,842
Sometimes he recaptures a day
of happiness, though different.

73
00:11:59,581 --> 00:12:04,895
A face of happiness,
though different.

74
00:12:07,349 --> 00:12:08,393
Ruins.

75
00:12:10,998 --> 00:12:14,022
A girl who could be the one he seeks.

76
00:12:15,899 --> 00:12:17,770
He passes her on the jetty.

77
00:12:21,631 --> 00:12:23,506
She smiles at him from an automobile.

78
00:12:26,114 --> 00:12:28,924
Other images appear, merge,

79
00:12:29,137 --> 00:12:30,073
in that museum,

80
00:12:30,079 --> 00:12:31,954
which is perhaps that of his memory.

81
00:13:13,652 --> 00:13:17,199
On the thirtieth day,
the meeting takes place.

82
00:13:20,326 --> 00:13:22,412
Now he is sure he recognizes her.

83
00:13:23,349 --> 00:13:25,638
ln fact, it is
the only thing he is sure of,

84
00:13:25,648 --> 00:13:27,307
in the middle
of this dateless world

85
00:13:27,414 --> 00:13:29,702
that at first stuns him
with its affluence.

86
00:13:44,928 --> 00:13:47,845
Around him,
only fabulous materials:

87
00:13:48,473 --> 00:13:52,649
glass, plastic, terry cloth.

88
00:13:53,843 --> 00:13:56,393
When he recovers from his trance,

89
00:13:56,970 --> 00:13:58,382
the woman has gone.

90
00:14:02,652 --> 00:14:06,198
The experimenters
tighten their control.

91
00:14:06,509 --> 00:14:08,287
They send him
back out on the trail.

92
00:14:08,907 --> 00:14:12,975
Time rolls back again,
the moment returns.

93
00:14:19,750 --> 00:14:22,359
This time he is close to her,
he speaks to her.

94
00:14:23,405 --> 00:14:25,171
She welcomes him
without surprise.

95
00:14:27,048 --> 00:14:29,752
They are without memories,
without plans.

96
00:14:30,331 --> 00:14:32,942
Time builds itself
painlessly around them.

97
00:14:33,144 --> 00:14:36,739
Their only landmarks are the flavor
of the moment they are living

98
00:14:36,899 --> 00:14:39,035
and the markings on the walls.

99
00:14:49,984 --> 00:14:52,593
Later on, they are in a garden.

100
00:14:53,111 --> 00:14:55,720
He remembers there were gardens.

101
00:15:26,783 --> 00:15:28,562
She asks him about his necklace,

102
00:15:28,921 --> 00:15:32,728
the combat necklace he wore
at the start of the war
that is yet to come.

103
00:15:33,457 --> 00:15:35,329
He invents an explanation.

104
00:15:39,973 --> 00:15:44,194
They walk. They look at the trunk
of a redwood tree covered
with historical dates.

105
00:15:44,924 --> 00:15:48,150
She pronounces an English name
he doesn't understand.

106
00:15:55,142 --> 00:15:58,367
As in a dream, he shows her
a point beyond the tree,

107
00:15:58,581 --> 00:16:00,039
hears himself say,

108
00:16:00,456 --> 00:16:02,332
''This is where l come from ...'' -

109
00:16:05,046 --> 00:16:07,334
- and falls back, exhausted.

110
00:16:10,257 --> 00:16:13,804
Then another wave of Time
washes over him.

111
00:16:14,846 --> 00:16:17,560
The result of
another injection perhaps.

112
00:16:27,461 --> 00:16:29,132
Now she is asleep in the sun.

113
00:16:38,406 --> 00:16:41,537
He knows that in this world
to which he has just
returned for a while,

114
00:16:41,584 --> 00:16:43,670
only to be sent back to her,

115
00:16:43,983 --> 00:16:46,769
she is dead.

116
00:16:52,481 --> 00:16:53,630
She wakes up.

117
00:16:53,939 --> 00:16:55,613
He speaks again.

118
00:16:56,024 --> 00:17:00,294
Of a truth too fantastic to be
believed he retains the essential:

119
00:17:00,612 --> 00:17:03,801
an unreachable country,
a long way to go.

120
00:17:05,094 --> 00:17:05,876
She listens.

121
00:17:05,929 --> 00:17:06,866
She doesn't laugh.

122
00:17:36,267 --> 00:17:37,939
ls it the same day?

123
00:17:38,560 --> 00:17:39,912
He doesn't know.

124
00:17:40,540 --> 00:17:46,375
They shall go on like this,
on countless walks in which
an unspoken trust,

125
00:17:46,796 --> 00:17:48,775
an unadulterated trust
will grow between them,

126
00:17:49,609 --> 00:17:51,698
without memories or plans.

127
00:17:52,113 --> 00:17:55,030
Up to the moment where he feels
- ahead of them -

128
00:17:55,292 --> 00:17:57,119
- a barrier.

129
00:18:07,021 --> 00:18:10,151
And this was the end
of the first experiment.

130
00:18:14,318 --> 00:18:17,022
lt was the starting point for
a whole series of tests,

131
00:18:17,032 --> 00:18:20,153
in which he would meet her
at different times.

132
00:18:25,057 --> 00:18:27,869
Sometimes he finds her
in front of their markings.

133
00:18:33,813 --> 00:18:35,378
She welcomes him in a simple way.

134
00:18:36,733 --> 00:18:39,022
She calls him her Ghost.

135
00:18:41,945 --> 00:18:44,556
One day she seems frightened.

136
00:18:46,844 --> 00:18:49,762
One day she leans toward him.

137
00:18:52,788 --> 00:18:56,334
As for him, he never knows
whether he moves toward her,

138
00:18:56,338 --> 00:18:59,457
whether he is driven,
whether he has made it up,

139
00:18:59,538 --> 00:19:01,235
or whether he is only dreaming.

140
00:20:03,054 --> 00:20:04,727
Around the fiftieth day,

141
00:20:05,555 --> 00:20:09,208
they meet in a museum
filled with timeless animals.

142
00:20:36,451 --> 00:20:39,096
Now the aim is perfectly adjusted.

143
00:20:40,480 --> 00:20:45,486
Thrown at the right moment, he may
stay there and move without effort.

144
00:22:20,459 --> 00:22:22,439
She too seems tamed.

145
00:22:31,093 --> 00:22:33,381
She accepts as a natural phenomenon

146
00:22:33,595 --> 00:22:36,726
the ways of this visitor
who comes and goes,

147
00:22:37,113 --> 00:22:40,482
who exists, talks, laughs with her,

148
00:22:40,685 --> 00:22:42,666
stops talking, listens to her,

149
00:22:42,770 --> 00:22:43,706
then disappears.

150
00:23:40,161 --> 00:23:42,818
Once back in the experiment room,

151
00:23:43,236 --> 00:23:45,940
he knew something was different.

152
00:23:46,884 --> 00:23:48,973
The camp leader was there.

153
00:23:49,908 --> 00:23:51,676
From the conversation around him,

154
00:23:52,098 --> 00:23:55,952
he gathered that after the brilliant
results of the tests in the Past,

155
00:23:56,111 --> 00:23:59,180
they now meant to ship him
into the Future.

156
00:23:59,918 --> 00:24:04,188
His excitement made him
forget for a moment that
the meeting at the museum

157
00:24:04,607 --> 00:24:05,960
had been the last.

158
00:24:13,783 --> 00:24:16,071
The Future was better protected
than the Past.

159
00:24:18,994 --> 00:24:21,497
After more, painful tries,

160
00:24:22,332 --> 00:24:25,462
he eventually caught some waves
of the world to come.

161
00:24:28,377 --> 00:24:30,665
He went through a brand new planet,

162
00:24:32,650 --> 00:24:34,004
Paris rebuilt,

163
00:24:35,154 --> 00:24:37,135
ten thousand
incomprehensible avenues.

164
00:24:42,557 --> 00:24:44,644
Others where waiting for him.

165
00:24:48,550 --> 00:24:50,270
lt was a brief encounter.

166
00:24:50,948 --> 00:24:54,647
Obviously, they rejected
these scoriae of another time.

167
00:24:57,567 --> 00:24:59,133
He recited his lesson:

168
00:25:00,279 --> 00:25:02,473
because humanity had survived,

169
00:25:02,675 --> 00:25:06,329
it could not refuse to its own
past the means of its survival.

170
00:25:12,373 --> 00:25:15,503
This sophism was taken for Fate
in disguise.

171
00:25:28,532 --> 00:25:30,322
They gave him a power unit
strong enough

172
00:25:30,355 --> 00:25:33,321
to put all human industry
back into motion,

173
00:25:34,369 --> 00:25:38,437
and again the gates of the Future
were closed.

174
00:25:45,836 --> 00:25:47,615
Some time after his return,

175
00:25:47,921 --> 00:25:50,209
he was transferred to
another part of the camp.

176
00:25:51,675 --> 00:25:54,070
He knew that his jailers
would not spare him.

177
00:25:55,116 --> 00:25:57,204
He had been a tool in their hands,

178
00:25:57,618 --> 00:26:01,366
his childhood image had been used
as bait to condition him,

179
00:26:01,788 --> 00:26:04,919
he had lived up to their
expectations, he had
played his part.

180
00:26:05,228 --> 00:26:07,314
Now he only waited
to be liquidated with,

181
00:26:07,626 --> 00:26:12,323
somewhere inside him, the memory
of a twice-lived fragment of time.

182
00:26:14,506 --> 00:26:16,332
And deep in this limbo,

183
00:26:16,383 --> 00:26:18,671
he received a message from
the people of the world to come.

184
00:26:19,771 --> 00:26:22,227
They too travelled through Time,

185
00:26:22,690 --> 00:26:24,303
and more easily.

186
00:26:25,350 --> 00:26:26,914
Now they were there,

187
00:26:27,120 --> 00:26:29,517
ready to accept him
as one of their own.

188
00:26:33,482 --> 00:26:35,569
But he had a different request:

189
00:26:36,713 --> 00:26:39,001
rather than this pacified Future,

190
00:26:39,526 --> 00:26:43,072
he wanted to be returned
to the world of his childhood,

191
00:26:44,218 --> 00:26:47,764
and to this woman who was
perhaps waiting for him.

192
00:26:53,496 --> 00:26:55,999
Once again the main jetty at Orly,

193
00:26:56,521 --> 00:27:00,590
in the middle of this warm
pre-war Sunday afternoon
where he could now stay,

194
00:27:00,742 --> 00:27:05,177
he thought in a confused way
that the child he had been
was due to be there too,

195
00:27:05,177 --> 00:27:06,531
watching the planes.

196
00:27:08,093 --> 00:27:12,790
But first of all he looked
for the woman's face,
at the end of the jetty.

197
00:27:32,196 --> 00:27:34,152
He ran toward her.

198
00:27:34,259 --> 00:27:38,327
And when he recognized the man
who had trailed him since
the underground camp,

199
00:27:38,639 --> 00:27:41,450
he understood there was no way
to escape Time,

200
00:27:41,975 --> 00:27:45,520
and that this moment he had been
granted to watch as a child,

201
00:27:45,831 --> 00:27:47,967
which had never ceased to obsess him,

202
00:27:49,794 --> 00:27:52,925
was the moment of his own death.