Avalon

Rating:
Summary: Avalon, Or: Lose respect for Japanese film in one easy step.
Review: I got my hands on this DVD after catching the first five minutes of the movie being projected on a warehouse wall with a backdrop of thumping industrial techno. The opening scenes were rather impressive - an illegal, potentially lethal video game in which people get online, strap on military hardware and set about killing each other. Although I'm not a fan of online gaming (I'm crap at first person shooters), I thought it looked and sounded like a cool premise. So I went home and found a copy.

The first five minutes, again, were fantastic. A moderately fast-paced battle scene with awesome tech and lots of things blowing up. Fun. But then 'reality' struck.

I've long been annoyed by the sort of pseudo-symbolism that Japanese movie makers seem to like drowning their creations in. Usually it's pretentious and annoying, but it does serve to cover up the incredibly shallow plots of most Japanese animes and movies. For instance, want to have giant robots that exist for no real reason fighting monsters that continuously show up for no real reason in a post-apocalyptic world that has no reason to exist? Add a faux-Biblical subtext and you have Evangelion (which I thought was otherwise very cool).

Avalon is different. Instead of taking a shallow, unworkable pretext and slaps in a half carried-through set of (cool and ominous sounding) mythical symbolisms from another culture to add some depth, Avalon takes a monumentally workable and interesting idea and adds a crappy mythological overtone to completely deprive the movie of depth.

So many things could have been covered - why the world was so miserable, why the game killed some people and under what conditions, how laws banning the game were supposedly enforced, how the clans interacted in the game, and even how the unbelievably cool idea of preserving Dungeons and Dragons style character classes in a modern warfare game would work. These are all completely ignored in favour 90-something minutes of sepia-toned still scenes emphasising how dreary the world and city is, and cryptic but ultimately pointless references to some aspects of Arthurian legend.

The protagonists are wooden, stereotypical and unlikeable. Character development is nil. The battle scenes are few and far between, and the first one is the only good one. For the most part, even the most powerful machines lack weight and aren't particularly threatening, and even if they were, it is hard to bring yourself to care about what happens to any of the characters anyway. To top it off, the soundtrack (or lack thereof) is minimalist to the point of non-existence.

The movie ends, leaving a bad taste in your mouth. That bad taste is the taste of having had an hour and a half of your life taken away from you by a horribly pretentious Japanese gentleman. My girlfriend was put to sleep by the slow pace and dreary setting of this movie, and even after I returned the DVD to the store the next day she didn't trust me to chose another movie for weeks.

Avalon is truly awful. While some people seem to like it for some sort of artistic value, I found it to be pretentious and ultimately devoid of value. It takes some great ideas and ignores them entirely. Any movie which wanted to subsequently explore those ideas which Avalon discarded would be decried as a rip off and probably sued. That's probably the worst thing about Avalon. Do not watch it.

Rating:
Summary: Bassett Hound!
Review: I will not go into the details of the plot since they have been covered by others. I will just say that as weird as this movie "noir" was, I actually liked it. What tilted the scale in its' favor was featuring Ash's Bassett Hound. My favorite type dog, that old hound made the movie for me! At first I thought the dog was either kidnapped or dead, but when Ash goes to the "real" world, you see the dog flopping his chops out the window of a car going by. Too cool! My biggest criticism is that whoever did the subtitles needs a few grammar lessons. Ouch! But overall, if you are looking for a weird trip, and do not expect to see a Matrix clone (which it is not), and do not mind reading through sometimes rapidly changing subtitles, it is a good movie. And that dog is icing on the cake!

Rating:
Summary: Bassett Hound!
Review: I will not go into the details of the plot since they have been covered by others. I will just say that as weird as this movie "noir" was, I actually liked it. What tilted the scale in its' favor was featuring Ash's Bassett Hound. My favorite type dog, that old hound made the movie for me! At first I thought the dog was either kidnapped or dead, but when Ash goes to the "real" world, you see the dog flopping his chops out the window of a car going by. Too cool! My biggest criticism is that whoever did the subtitles needs a few grammar lessons. Ouch! But overall, if you are looking for a weird trip, and do not expect to see a Matrix clone (which it is not), and do not mind reading through sometimes rapidly changing subtitles, it is a good movie. And that dog is icing on the cake!

Rating:
Summary: Must-see for anyone interested in the nuances of filmmaking
Review: It is unfortunate that we've been so jaded by the Hollywood version of what a film should be that we would pass up the nuances that can make an otherwise mediocre film into a great film, albeit if mainly for its cinematographic value. Some appear to have judged Avalon, and the efforts of its director (Oshii), within this context--even presuming that the film is nothing more than a bad Matrix wannabe. This is not the case, in my view.

I much prefer to be enticed by subtle details and given an opportunity to become immersed in mood than bombarded with a lot of special effects and high-flying acrobatics. This is what I found to be so refreshing about this movie.

As for providing explanations to everything, well, I don't know that that is always needed in a film in order for it to be entertaining. So is it that I find it interesting that our Western mindset cannot deal with finding deeper meanings, through our own interpretations, in most anything that we encounter. It's as if we expect to pause our brains and be entertained through mere visual stimulation. Of course, I know that this is not really what others have described. Still, this is the type of movie that I believe deserves better than what I've read in these reviews. It's funny that I say all this and it was precisely the visuals that made the film so endearing. There's nothing passe about achieving a high level of beauty in a film, and we are fortunate to have "some" directors still mindful of this growingly archaic attention to detail.

Rating:
Summary: GREAT CYBERPUNK!
Review: Nice to see Oshii putting out this great film. As others have stated, it is a slow paced cyberpunk fantasy though done wonderfully. I would like to see the original directors version after reading here that MIRAMAX changed it. English dubbing is very good. Watch it with subtitles for full effect though. If you like Anime, cyberpunk, or other such films as Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell, Tron (one of the only GREAT disney movies) then you'll love this one.

Rating:
Summary: "Stunning" Only In Its Ignorance
Review: Several years ago, Moviefone.com revealed a promotional in theatres spoofing Polish art films with the parody, "Look at My Potato." The premise was an olderly man chose to stare for hour upon hour without end at a simple potato because he couldn't get access to his local theatre showtimes (hence the Moviefone tie-in). It was filmed in a dark, near sepia tone quality, and the background music was opera music.

Well, the whimsical folks at Moviefone.com weren't very far from the truth when it comes to Polish art films as AVALON amply proves, hitting the target dead center.

In the near future, society has cashed out on humanity. Instead, people have chosen to immerse themselves in a multi-level virtual reality war game where it seems that all combat takes place in the deserted same factory somewhere deep in the heart of Poland. As every game needs a champion, the unbeatable character here is an Anime-influenced beauty named Ash, a competitor whose combat attire is more akin to a dominatrix than a dominator. Ash's obsession is to reach AVALON, the highest level of the game where "Unreturned" players (players whose brains have turned to jelly for still yet unexplained logic) go in order to be reunited with Murphy, a teammate she lost an indeterminate number of years/months/days/seconds ago. (Of course, once she gets there, she relatively promptly shoots him, an act left with equally less explanation as all the seminal events in the film.)

In large part, AVALON is what I call celluloid flatulence: sure, it sounds and looks pretty, but, once it's released, the room is still best cleared. And quickly. The film boasts big ideas (perhaps far too many for this cheap attempt for a MATRIX ripoff) all of which go unexplored. Perhaps therein lies the problem: AVALON had far too many ideas to be explored in the time (or sense) alloted. Photographed beautifully but horrifically edited (was the editor afraid to shorten the 45 second scene of Ash just looking around her apartment at nothing or the nearly two minute sequence of close-ups of Ash's teammate stuffing his mouth with breakfast fare?), much of AVALON is barely watchable. I caution serious viewers to have your finger poised near the FF button on your DVD remote.

One of the principle questions the film completely ignores is -- if the virtual reality games are illegal -- how do so many people have such free access to them in these easy-to-spot gaming houses? Clearly, Ash gets "paid" to play the games, so where does the money come from? If it's a source of income, who's backing it? At one point, it appears to be "government-sponsored," and, if that's the case, how can it be illegal? Of course, like any question raised by the film, no answer is provided.

Comparisons to THE MATRIX and EXISTENZ aren't even valid, in my opinion, because those films made the marked distinction of letting the viewer know that their games had a purpose. In those films, the participants went into the game with a reason, and their escape from the game brought with it as much risk as playing. In those films, the game construct served a notable purpose. With AVALON, the game appears to be absolutely nothing more than escapism-for-the-sake-of-escapism (a vacation from reality), and Ash's life (she's called Ash in and out of the game) appears to be as equally questionable as to whether or not she is even real.

Reviewers 'round these parts have made 'much ado' about the director's choice of shooting this film almost entirely in sepia tones. While I didn't find it distracting in the slightest, I would agree that the choice was questionably effective on the grounds that, creatively, it's never truly explained. Both the game and what the viewer presumes is real life both appear in the same hues. Once Ash reaches "Class Real," the film is shot in full vivid color, meaning that real life -- although it ends up being only another level in what appears to be an endless series of computer simulations -- is nothing more than a game: if this is Director Oshii's point, I think it's safe to say that we knew that from the beginning, leaving the film an exercise in pointlessness.

Mark my words: the only thing remotely watchable in this dreck outside of some stark visuals is the stunningly beautiful Polish actress Malgorzata Foremniak. She is everything a confident heterosexual could ask for and more.

Frankly and sadly, she was the only reason I finished the DVD.

Rating:
Summary: Very Good for those Familiar with the Genre--others lost
Review: The genre is its big problem. The setting and proposition of the movie have been done so many times before that the beauty and subtlety of its work gets lost in the influence of other movies. We suppose that if a viewer were seeing this movie for the first time without ever seeing any of its ancestors it would become a lot more important to them. Sadly, because it itself is so heavily influenced, it will become merely interesting in the minds of the viewing public. And that's a shame because it's really more important than that.

WHO SHOULD WATCH:

Anyone who has watched and appreciated an animé film, particularly Ghost in a Shell, should absolutely not miss this movie. They will find it a deeply satisfying experience vindicating what they've always suspected: animé is doing some of the best and most original work and there's no reason it couldn't choose a live-action presentation if it so desired. Viewers who are interested in reality bending work like The Matrix and The Thirteenth Floor et. al. will also find a lot of satisfaction in this film. It might resonate best of all with those people who are or have been addicted to virtual gaming experiences where friends and enemies are made and personalities both assumed and real leap to the fore. On an oddly related note, people who love older mystery films in the mold of Hitchcock and To Catch a Thief may also find this film very satisfying since the pacing and characterization are very similar though with a certain Japanese minimalism.

WHO SHOULD AVOID:

The aforementioned "smash mouth" viewer who is interested in lots of action, lots of bullets, lots of marshal arts, sex, and special effects will likely be very disappointed. There is some action but its very ancillary to the movie and done so only to create the character--for it is the game that creates the character rather than their words or the settings of their homes. And don't expect the surfeit of blood and sex that came with Ghost in a Shell--it's not here. We're sort of baffled by the R-rating, actually. This movie requires that a viewer be well-versed in either gaming or science-fiction or, preferably--both. If you have no interest in these subjects then this is not a good learning experience for you. You'll be puzzled and sort of annoyed at what is really a very good movie.

READ THE ENTIRE REVIEW AT INCHOATUS.COM

Rating:
Summary: Blue pill or the red pill?
Review: There are serious movies. There are movies that begged to be taken seriously. Avalon is the latter. Released to a poor box office showing in 2001, the low-budget Avalon will forever be doomed to obscurity. The reason is no mystery. Avalon was directed by Mamoru Oshii, the man responsible for the Anime cult classic, Ghost in the Shell, which, like Avalon, is little more than an exercise in mood and morose pacing. However, with Avalon, self-importance discovers a new level. Avalon itself is a war-game. A very popular war game. Popular because it's virtual reality. Popular because it is potentially lethal. Within the sepia colored atmosphere of Avalon, the lines between reality and computer simulation are blurred. Sound familiar? It should. But there are no bullet-time FX to be found here. Only obscure symbolism, listless characters who stare at the floor for long periods of time, and a filthy post-apocalyptic world located in a future Poland. Only, sadly, it looks like modern Poland. Indeed, Avalon is a Japanese film, yet it's filled with Polish actors who speak only Polish. Right out of the starting gate, this film does its best to alienate the viewer. Everything is buried under so much bleakness, and the film spends so much time following characters who do little but, well, wander around, there is almost nothing to attach emotion or thought to. And the scary part is, this is why the film received any critical praise. Nothing like a big dose of pretension to make an art-house fan feel the weight of obligation. Ultimately, Avalon begs you to take it as seriously as it takes itself, it pleads you to stay the course and follow its enigmatic plot straight to the end, while, on the journey, you try to solve its meanings. Only to discover that, when you reach your destination, the film is nearly as clueless as you are. Enjoy.

Rating:
Summary: A visual feast
Review: This is a beautiful movie that keeps you wondering what will happen next all the way until the very end. Not only is it stylishly filmed, with fascinating special effects (unlike almost anything you've ever seen before), but has a haunting score which enhances the experience even more. This film is a gem which has somehow slipped under the radar.

Rating:
Summary: excellent
Review: This movie is 10 times better than the matrix. The story and philosophy of this movie is excellent. Highly recomended.