Level Five (1997)
Cast: Catherine Belkhodja, Kenji Tokitsu, Nagisa Ôshima
Director: Chris Marker
Genre: Documentary | Romance | War
Country: France
Editor’s Notes: Chris Marker’s Level Five is now playing at TIFF Bell Lightbox.
Jarring fragments from a new realm of creative possibilities flood the screen with mid 1990s CRT technological aesthetics. Motion and light existing solely in a fabricated vacuum circumnavigates the world at lightning speeds as material objects have been given a new method of intercommunication that requires waning levels of human interaction to facilitate. The machines are able communicate in a completeness unattainable by humans (despite the claims of shamans and psychedelic drug pushers) Fits and starts of electroconvulsions shudder through wires and over airwaves that are nonsensical out of context, requiring machines on both sides to modulate and demodulate the chaotic procession of bits to turn it into something usable by humans. It’s a progression that has been on the march since the dawn of human civilization, each major conflict driving a futile search for more effective ways to exterminate our own kind, often spawning technological breakthroughs that have purpose beyond our propensity for self-destruction. From the revelatory moment in ancient human history when the first angry tribesman placed a rock in his hands to more effectively terminate a member of a rival tribe there has been a steady dehumanization of destruction. We remove ourselves from the equation as much as possible and work at making monsters of the other tribe/faction/nation because despite our dramatic technological advances in methodologies, murder is still really hard.
Jarring fragments from a new realm of creative possibilities flood the screen with mid 1990s CRT technological aesthetics.
A familiar face materializes in the digital mists. It’s Nagisa Oshima offering his insights on the events of World War II, his image initially captured by analog video or celluloid then sampled and simplified into a static collection of digital information to be frozen in time, his humanistic dialogue rendered and etched into the circuitry for easy transport across the digital ether. His lamentations will find no audience until triggered by a consumer of material goods that has paid for their ticket and purchased equipment that knows how to do exactly that and nothing else. The machines are inflexible and know nothing of creativity, save for speeches and texts on the subject that have been etched into their circuitry. A programmer has been tasked with developing a game that encapsulates the lessons of World War II, but the machines refuse to cooperate with her and the sadness of human history has chiseled away her resolve.
She speaks to a camera from her lonely bunker like it was a long lost lover, eulogizing humanity in poetic and wistful monologues as the priorities and prejudices of man and machine begin to mirror one another with each technological breakthrough.
She speaks to a camera from her lonely bunker like it was a long lost lover, eulogizing humanity in poetic and wistful monologues as the priorities and prejudices of man and machine begin to mirror one another with each technological breakthrough. Machines begin to exhibit human qualities as the creation emulates the creator with increasing precision. Machines have the innate need to contextualize and categorize each piece of information so it can be recalled with exacting precision. The human propensity for categorization is less formal, assigning value to people based on ideological concerns is something of a hobby, but categorization based on survival and necessity is our full time job. Unfortunately those lines tend to blur in times of mass conflict and our organic wiring is short circuited when opportunists in positions of power amplify and distort ideological traits to dehumanize the other faction to make them easier to murder. It’s a process of dehumanization that we are better at than machines, but we’ve had a lot longer to practice that one.
Level Five charges ahead like a juggernaut of images and ideas that we are forced to chase after, allowing us the ability to admire its impressions in the sand as we piece together its master plan and watch it disappear on the horizon. It draws fascinating parallels between the progression of humankind and its technology, cataloging the evolution of our self destructive tendencies and the decreased need for humans in the process of destruction. Perhaps the logical conclusion is the waging of wars in digital frontiers that would eliminate the need for a loss of human life, but ideological disparities will probably always demand blood. Besides, it’s impossible for a person to reach level five without dying first, the living are just too good at disproving their own infallibility.
Level Five charges ahead like a juggernaut of images and ideas that we are forced to chase after, allowing us the ability to admire its impressions in the sand as we piece together its master plan and watch it disappear on the horizon. It draws fascinating parallels between the progression of humankind and its technology, cataloging the evolution of our self destructive tendencies and the decreased need for humans in the process of destruction.
