Level Five (Chris Marker)
May's Top 30 Films
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1h 50m
Directed by Chris Marker • Drama • With Catherine Belkhodja, Kenji Tokitsu • 1996 • 106 minutes
A woman (Laura), a computer, an invisible interlocutor: such is the setup on which LEVEL FIVE is built. She "inherits" a task: to finish writing a video game centered on the Battle of Okinawa—a tragedy practically unknown in the West, but whose development played a decisive role in the way World War II ended, as well as in postwar times and even our present.
A strange game, in fact. Contrary to classical strategy games whose purpose is to turn back the tide of history, this one seems willing only to reproduce history as it happened. While working on Okinawa and meeting through a rather unusual network—parallel to Internet—informants and even eye-witnesses to the battle (including film director Nagisa Oshima), Laura gathers pieces of the tragedy, until they start to interfere with her own life.
"A passionate and cerebral science-fiction adventure."—The New York Times
"A fascinating glimpse of a historical event that's still little known in the West."—Variety
"Marker's late masterpiece... Keeps getting more contemporary every time I watch it... Visually rich and beautifully written." —Jonathan Rosenbaum, Cinema Scope
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