DESIGN & CINEMA: Summer Wars (+ film analysis)
Summer Wars by Mamoru Hosoda
Japan, 2009, 1h54, VOSTF
• entertainment •
Kenji, a shy high school student and math prodigy, accompanies Natsuki to her family's home for the summer when a mysterious coded message propels him into the heart of a global crisis. Love Machine, an uncontrolled artificial intelligence, threatens Oz, a vast social network for which Kenji works and where vital services, corporate showcases, and digital identities intertwine. In Summer Wars, Mamoru Hosoda extends the exploration begun in The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and foreshadows the broader themes of Wolf Children, Ame and Yuki: a celebration of community, an emphasis on transmission, and the interplay between the real and the virtual. Within a narrative that alternates between the textured warmth of rural Japan and the geometric abstraction of Oz, a complex and choreographic space, Summer Wars dramatically examines the vulnerability of a world dependent on its digital infrastructure and re-energizes the need for community forms capable of counteracting its collapse.
The screening was followed by an analysis of the film by Nicolas Thévenin, publishing director of the magazine Répliques, member of the Cinématographe programming committee and teacher at l'école de design Nantes Atlantique.
Enseignant / Permanents