LEVEL FIVE
France, 1996
Director: Chris Marker
Level Five explores the interactions between history, memory and the visual image. It traces a woman’s obsessive odyssey as she reconstructs a video game left unfinished by her deceased lover.
He was a computer artist, she is a writer, and their relationship, once lived away from the television screen, is now housed wholly within it. The subject of the game: the Battle of Okinawa in the twilight of World War II.
To finish the game, a player must scrupulously re-create every last detail of the war through cyber-imagery: the newsreels, the bombings, the mass suicides.
Cinematography:
Chris Marker
Music:
Michel Krasna
Principal cast:
Catherine Belkhodja, Oshima Nagisa, Kenji Tokitsu
Production: Les Films de l’Astrophore, Argos Films / 35mm / colour / 106 mins.
Director:
Chris Marker’s prolific career has been distinguished by an artful melding of genres, primarily historical documentary, multimedia and science fiction. He was born in 1921 and fought in the anti-German resistance during World War II.
He began working on documentary films in 1950, and was quickly acclaimed with films such as Statues also Die (1953), co-directed with Alain Resnais, A Sunday in Peking (1956) and Letters from Siberia.
His SF short La Jetée (1962-64), entirely composed from still photographs, is admired as a cult masterpiece. He has also produced many video works, including Level Five.
Also known as a computer media artist and a fanatic of video games, his multi-media installation, Silent Movie, celebrated the centenary of cinema.