A French computer programmer attempts to create a game about WWII’s Battle of Okinawa but faces an existential crisis when history, memory and trauma become mediated by the throes of technological change in this spectral final feature documentary from one of cinema’s foremost experimenters.
Review #2,655
Dir. Chris Marker
1997 | France | Documentary, History, War | 110 min | 1.37:1 | French, Japanese & English
Not rated – likely to be PG13 for some mature themes
Cast: –
Plot: The French computer programmer Laura inherits the task of making a computer game about the Battle of Okinawa in Japan during WWII. She searches the Internet for information on the battle, and interviews Japanese experts and witnesses. The extraordinary circumstances of the Battle of Okinawa lead Laura to reflect deeply on her own life and humanity in general, particularly the influence of history and memories.
Awards: –
Distributor: Argos Films
Accessibility Index
Subject Matter: Moderate – Historical Trauma, Memories, Technological Mediation, Past & Future
Narrative Style: Slightly Complex
Pace: Slightly Slow
Audience Type: General Arthouse
Viewed: MUBI
Spoilers: No
As one of cinema’s foremost experimenters, Chris Marker left us with Level Five, which would be his last feature film.
It is as ‘1997’ a film as it can get, a time capsule of technology at a time when we saw its potential but never for once imagined it would explode into what we have today—the proliferation of the internet, e-gaming, digital communication and artificial intelligence.
As such, Level Five is at once a curious marker of what I would describe as a time of ‘digital innocence’—where technological possibilities were dreamt and desired, but more importantly, un-burdensome.
A French computer programmer is at the heart of Marker’s documentary as she attempts to create a game about the Battle of Okinawa, one of the bloodiest events of WWII.
In the process, she faces an existential crisis when history and trauma become hyperreal as if we are reliving the horrific event through its mediation by technology.
“What can these be but the playthings of a mad God who made us to build them for him?”
Some of the strongest aspects of Level Five come from it being an essential if shocking history lesson, as we become taken aback by the Okinawans’ brutal sacrifices for the Japanese, including being brainwashed into performing mass suicides as the Americans advanced onto the islands.
Marker’s approach, ever so fascinating, continues his obsession with Japan as the film confronts its wartime history from the ‘safety’ of being behind the computer. Can trauma be more effectively accessed through commodification and gamification? And is it ethical?
A techno-spectral work that should prove satisfying for explorers of experimental documentaries, Level Five could be seen (and as someone says in the film) as ‘Okinawa mon amour’, a sister film to Alain Resnais’ seminal picture from 1959.
Marker ultimately poses the prophetic question: what is left out when technology meets history? Can the ‘souls’ of these two disparate fields ever align ontologically?
Grade: A-
Trailer:
Music:
Eternality Tan 