11/20/2023 0 Comments Summer wars movie subAn art cinema legend for austere Catholic allegories like Mouchette and Au Hasard Batlthazar, the director had previously worked in such a timeless, literary tradition I can’t imagine how jarring it must have been to see him make a color film set in present day Paris. (This was the summer of Star Wars, after all.) Bresson was 76 years old when he made the picture. I suppose it is, indeed, a dangerous film – dangerous in ways that movies with ideas can bump up against conventional wisdom and unsettle audiences looking for easy, feel-good bromides. It screened exactly once at the New York Film Festival in 1977, then wasn’t shown again in the U.S. The Devil, Probably was initially banned by the French government for fears it could be an incitement to teenage suicide. As far as he’s concerned, the only proper form of protest in the modern world is a rebuke of the entire endeavor. (Not a great movie to watch with someone who loves baby seals.) Its idealistic young people squabble over the most effective means of protest, getting hung up on petty disagreements about process, the way idealistic young people are wont to do. The Devil, Probably starts with a litany of dire statistics about nuclear devastation and harrowing footage of environmental disasters. It’s a clever microcosm of the movie’s worldview - or at least the protagonist’s – in which a bunch of disagreeable strangers uncomfortably crammed together, wasting time talking while hurtling towards a catastrophe entirely out of their control. It should be noted that this is the only time in the film’s entire 97 minutes that we see Charles crack a smile. It’s an audiovisual cacophony of pointless conflict and industrial noise, cutting away from angry faces to empty mirrors and encroaching traffic, until finally the driver becomes so distracted that he crashes the bus in a wreck that remains perversely offscreen. But in this anxiously edited sequence, Bresson gives the same weight to their commentary as he gives the clunky bus ticketing system and creaky door mechanics. The argument spills over to their fellow passengers, the surly strap-hangers piping up with pithy, pessimistic observations about recent government failures. Kenji is able to crack the code, but little does he know that his math expertise has just put Earth in great danger.The key scene to understanding Robert Bresson’s The Devil, Probably occurs about two-thirds of the way through the picture, when our disillusioned young philosopher Charles (Antoine Monnier) and his activist friend Michel (Henri de Maublanc) are bickering about politics on a crowded city bus. Shortly after arriving at Natsuki's family's estate, which is preparing for her great-grandmother's 90th birthday, he receives a strange, coded message on his cell phone from an unknown sender who challenges him to solve it. But unbeknownst to him, this adventure requires him to act as her fiancé. Kenji Koiso is a 17-year-old math genius and part-time OZ moderator who is invited by his crush Natsuki Shinohara on a summer trip. Because of its convenient applications, the majority of society has become highly dependent on the simulated reality, even going as far as entrusting the system with bringing back the unmanned asteroid explorer, Arawashi. OZ also possesses a near impenetrable security due to its strong encryption, ensuring that any personal data transmitted through the networks will be kept safe in order to protect those who use it. OZ, a virtual world connected to the internet, has become extremely popular worldwide as a spot for people to engage in a large variety of activities, such as playing sports or shopping, through avatars created and customized by the user.
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