Memories as Scars that are Momentary in Time

In this short essay I would like to talk about time and its interpretation by referring Kierkegaard, Benjamin, and the famous short-film that we watched in class, La Jetee.

According to Kierkegaard, the life (or time) must be understood backward and live forward. However, no one actually tries to understand this properly because no one take a stance backward. Benjamin adds the human and divine interpretation of time on top of Kierkegaard. He explains that human perception of time is like chain of events while angels interpret the time as a whole. A one big, growing catastrophe. With these background information we are able to examine La Jetee. 

Memories, also known as partial fractions of life, leave scars on us. Such memories are special, i.e, happiness and love. They can be distinguished from ordinary ones. Such memories do not have past or future. They are momentary, fixed points in time. Our main character has a very strong memory in his mind. It was about a women in Orly. His memory was so strong that he survived from the pressure of going back in time. Then he starts to interpret the time differently. His interpretation is not like chain of events. It is more likely a divine interpretation. He observes different memories as fixed points in time and yet, they have no specific order. However at some point, he images that he sleeps with the woman that still exist in his memory. The memory is so strong that his interpretation changes suddenly. The interpretation of time as a whole turned into chain of events and the woman starts to move rather than standing still as a fixed point. He starts to lose his divine interpretation. Then when he goes to future and meets with future humankind, he wants to be sent to Orly where he saw the woman when he was a child. Essentially, he tries to get away from the time because of two possible reasons. Maybe he just want to be in his childhood place which is Orly or he wants to see the woman again. We do not know exactly why, but when he gets there, he starts to search that woman. When he finds her he is shot by one of the experimentalist. He is shot because, “there is no way out time”.