IMMORTALITY follows the acting career of Marissa Marcel and the three films she starred in. Her life is revealed to us through clips from rehearsals, interviews, and behind-the-scenes of her three films. The player is looking through and scrubbing these clips to uncover why they were never released and what happened to Marissa Marcel. Each clip is revealed by clicking on certain images, but it’s not done linearly. Any random image can send you to one of the three films.
The first film Marcels starred in is called Ambrosio, which was filmed in 1968. Ambrosio follows a Catholic priest who uses his place of power to engage in his desires. The priest is being manipulated by Marcel’s character, Matilda, who is hiding as a monk for her safety. After being caught for his crimes, the priest signs his soul over to Satan in order to be spared from his execution. It is revealed that Matilda had made a pact with Satan and had been manipulating the priest into selling his soul as well. In an interview to promote the film, it was revealed that Marissa Marcel had been an unknown actress prior to being cast by the director. Despite finishing the film and promoting it, the film was never released because the director stole all of the negatives and disappeared. During the filming, however, Marcel becomes romantically involved with the Director of Photography John Durick. Durick then goes on to direct Marcel’s next film.
The second film is called Minsky and it was filmed in 1970. In this film, Marissa plays the girlfriend and muse of a murdered artist named Franny. She becomes romantically involved with the detective investigating the murder, and he’s played by Carl Greenwood. Franny is helping the detective solve the murder, but it is revealed that Franny is the one who murdered the artist. She was planning on leaving him because she was done with his controlling behavior, but the artist would not let her leave. Instead, she murders him and tries to cover her tracks, but ultimately reveals what she did by the end of the film. However, during filming, Marcel “accidentally” shoots Greenwood with a prop gun. They never released the film because they were not able to finish shooting the film.
After filming Minsky, Marcel disappears for more than twenty years before coming back to film her third and final film Two of Everything in 1999. In this film, Marissa Marcel plays two different characters. She plays Maria, a growing pop star, and Heather, Maria’s body double. After Maria is found dead under mysterious circumstances, Heather is sure Maria was murdered and investigates her death. Heather uncovers that Maria was murdered and by whom so she sets out to get revenge on those involved. Towards the end of filming, Marissa Marcel disappears and they are never able to finish filming.
While watching these clips, you can unlock secret clips that reveal a much darker story to the game. It is revealed through these hidden clips that Marcel is possessed by a being called The One. Although not much is known about The One’s origins, she seems to be an immortal being who has the ability to possess and replace people. The One is drawn to sex, violence, and art so that’s why those themes are present in all three of Marissa’s films. These hidden clips can be found by rewinding specific tapes, and this is usually accompanied by a special sound effect that helps players find these clips. Through these clips, we learn that Marissa Marcel was a French woman who was being sexually abused by German soldiers during World War II. The One comes to Marissa and offers to help her in exchange for her human form. Along with the One, there’s also The Other One who follows the One throughout the game. We learn that the Other One was possessing Carl Greenwood during Minsky and the One shot Greenwood on purpose.
We also learn more about Marcel’s disappearance through these hidden clips. The One had revealed their identity to Marcel’s boyfriend John Durick, but he reacted with disgust towards the One. The One then decides to take over Durick’s form as well as Marcel’s. However, the One is not capable of taking on two forms at once and her body starts to break down. During the filming of Two of Everything, Marcel starts bleeding on set multiple times because the One is being overwhelmed by possessing two people. At this point, the Other One is possessing another actress on set Amy Archer. The Other One decides to end the One’s suffering by killing them and burning them alive. This final scene is revealed once you’ve unlocked enough official clips no matter which clips you found.
While discussing the game in class, it was interesting to hear everyone’s thoughts on this storyline, specifically some people’s frustrations with it. People in class specifically mentioned their difficulty in finding these clips, or even knowing they existed. Like myself, some people found the secret clips by accident. There was never any indication that there were secret clips, so it’s possible to play through most of the game without even realizing there was an underlying storyline. There were also issues with uncovering parts of the story. For example, nobody in class was able to find the scene where Marissa Marcel gets possessed by the One which is probably one of the most important scenes in the game. The game also ends whether or not you find all the secret clips so it felt as though important pieces of the story were missing even though you technically finished the game. It was easier to find these clips knowing that the sound effects indicate secret clips, but not everybody realized that. As interesting as this hidden storyline was, it was difficult to uncover the full picture.
Intermittent Mechanism 