Audience Member
Chris Marker's essay films are very heady stuff. He follows a stream of consciousness, riffing on a particular theme but allowing for digressions that take in his favourite themes, cats and movies. But always his films focus on memory and the motivated desire to remember or to forget. His most famous essay film is Sans Soleil (1983), which focuses in part on Japan, as does Level Five - but most people know Marker (if they know him at all) as the director of La Jetée (1962), a science fiction short that impressionistically ponders about time and memory (and was the basis for Terry Gilliam's Twelve Monkeys, 1995). Level Five blends a focus on the internet and the knowledge society with an examination of the Battle of Okinawa at the end of World War II. Catherine Belkhodja plays Laura, a computer programmer tasked with designing a strategy game replicating the battle. She speaks directly to the screen about her research into the history of war as well as her relationship with her offscreen colleague (who must be Marker himself, narrating portions of the film in his native French). The facts we learn about the Battle of Okinawa are horrifying - large numbers of civilians committed suicide as the American troops approached or were killed by their loved ones if they were too young/helpless to kill themselves - but it is Marker's queries about how such events are remembered (or repressed) that resonate most deeply. So, again, the conceit of the film seems largely just a shell to allow Marker to freestyle his ideas about memory and the human experience, sad and terrible and unjust as it may often be. And although we often see Belkhodja speak directly to the camera in an informal pose, Marker's skill as an editor and a manipulator of images (his Macintosh computer is acknowledged in the final credits) means that the film is never boring or static - he takes us on a journey through (presumably found) footage and well-chosen discussion points by various talking heads (such as Nagisa Oshima), all aided by 1997-era computer graphics. Yet, still this film seems ahead of its time and I lament the loss of Marker in 2012 at age 91. Who is his heir in this genre of experimental essay film-making?
Rated 4/5 Stars •
Rated 4 out of 5 stars
02/04/23
Full Review
Audience Member
While researching Battle of Okinawa for a computer game (I learned that from a description of the movie, not from watching the movie) our protagonist, Laura, learns things and has thoughts. Some of those things are interesting. A few of the thoughts are.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
01/12/23
Full Review
walter m
With his hybrid film "Level Five," Chris Marker rambles on more than usual, especially the segments involving Laura(Catherine Belkhodja).(If anyone can tell me what the toy parrot is supposed to symbolize, I would appreciate it.) But once he finds his focus, he really gets on a roll, even anticipating the rise of the internet and Clint Eastwood's masterful diptych "Flags of Our Fathers/Letters from Iwo Jima," while warning about the temptation to rewrite history.
The particular bit of history that Marker is obsessed with here is the Battle of Okinawa, the last battle of World War II and one of the most fatal ever, especially as applied to civilian populations. As he points out, the Japanese military authorities sacrificed this distant province in the hope that it would deter the Americans from invading. Instead, Marker claims it led directly to the dropping of the first atomic bombs. I disagree. I think the Americans would have dropped them anyway on Japan as they felt they had to show off their shiny new toys to the Soviet Union.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
03/31/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Chris Marker's quasi-documentary (finally having a US release nearly 20 years after its release) is cinema at it's most cerebral and challenging. Applying his aesthetic to the realm of technology, Marker makes progressive claims about mankind's continued reliance on data, while also layering it with a parallel theme involving war. It often will re-iterate things in a seeming-loop, acting itself as a dark matter to the foreboding information sphere that the film addresses, which is a method that proves truly foreboding. It's anything but accessible, but serious appreciators of "film-essays" need to give this film multiple viewings!
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
01/23/23
Full Review
Audience Member
A mixed experience. I found the factual parts and interviews regarding the history of Okinawa very interesting - not to say shocking - while for the most part all the sequences in front of the computer just confused me, with a somewhat meditative feel, but I clearly prefer both La Jetà (C)e and Sans Soleil, of the Chris Marker directed films I've seen.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
02/04/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Another failure from an otherwise reputable director. This had some good ideas like the William Gibson quote in the intro sequence, but Marker's decision to just film a woman sitting at her desk talking about her computer is just stupid. It's as if he forgot everything he learned about imagery and narration in "San Soliel" and "La Jette", and so makes us suffer with this below amatuer quality documentary. The digital effects, from 1997 look like they came from 1982. "Wax Or The Discovery Of Television Among The Bees" is better in every way. I dont usually like to trash a film without providing an alternative, so try "Wax" if this subject interests you.
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
02/18/23
Full Review
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