Avalon (2001)

What a waste of my time!!!

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

If nothing else, Avalon is a visually striking movie, precisely for its lack of visual appeal. Whether it's the desert hellscapes of the virtual reality game the film centres around or the muted colours of the "real world", everything seems oppressively drab. It's an interesting bit of cinematography that makes it easy to understand how a person living in this dire, vaguely post-apocalyptic but maybe just contemporary city could turn to outlandish and violent fantasy.The script is, unfortunately, a bit of a shambles. Characters have cryptic conversations about the past or vague philosophical ideas. Interesting concepts are introduced only to be tossed aside. The ending is a steady unfolding of Twilight Zone-esque twists. It's basically Oshii indulging in his worst habits, basset hound and all. But what really rankles is that, despite this being ostensibly a film about video games, Oshii doesn't seem to grasp the appeal of games or gamer culture at all.Maybe there's a lot of stuff here I didn't get, or maybe a lot of important context got left on the cutting room floor. It's certainly an ambitious project, and not an entirely unsuccessful one. If nothing else it's nice to see Oshii exploring new ground with a live action film. But in the end this film just leaves me feeling as cold as its ambivalent and ambiguous protagonist.(Also, apparently the English version -- dub and sub -- includes expository dialogue not in the original. Who does that?)

It looks like a live-action movie about anime, about Artificial Reality, about Gaming and Society. Yes, this is Correct.It Looks like a Movie about a Fictional Game played in a Fictional Dystopian Future. Yes. . .But mostly Not quite what you think.It will NOT give the average viewer the usual Hollywood thriller blood 'n' guts Bang-Bang FPS shoot-em up. Instead, the creators of this movie, which could NEVER have come out of Hollywood, are using the Artificial Reality/Game to pose a dramatic question. Some reviewers have called the plot/pace slow...No-- it's called 'Drama', folks. It's not a recorded screenshot of ADHD paced shoot-em-up gameplay foisted on us and called a Movie. It's a Movie that dares to call itself a Drama and pose a QUESTION about Gameplay. It's seems 'slow'-- because you are supposed to wonder what IS ACTUALLY happening.Yes, it is about What is Artificial vs what is Real. But it does it with music, lighting, a play on color and a poetic sense.If you are willing -and able- to sit back and take in this movie as a Dramatic Event instead of the expected Blam-Bang-Boom action flick, you will be surprisingly moved.The Opening Theme at the beginning is stunning. The Musical Performance at the end is simply Beautiful.Girl-Friend Test! If she sits thru the first hour and then can't stop watching...she's a keeper.

I've passed this one over too many times. It always hooks me, but I'm too impatient. Now I have to get it for keeps.This is a unique gem. I'm concerned, as others have already suggested, that the people who were involved in this movie will not be recognized for what they have done. This is such special magic.What made me come back and take another look at this was a chance viewing of another often-misunderstood gem, "Vampyr" (1932). I see many similarities: the slow pacing, the sullen and underplayed characters, the unusual lighting and camera-work, the haunting, creepy feeling one is left with for *weeks* after. It seems to me that either (or better yet, both) of these movies are a one-stop film-making class. So many unusual techniques, so many encouragements to experiment without restraint.Well worth the time and intellectual excersize.

While movies like Blade Runner, Gattaca and Dark City illustrate the potential to artificially >produce live< together with its uncontrollable feedbacks, Avalon plays in a world were life is worth nothing, since it is thought to be artificial. Ash's role is defined by stalking down everything and everyone who moves along. With her virtual reality gear on, herself and others might easily mistake her appearance for an avatar like Lara Croft. At first sight the goal of the game is to access Avalon – a sacred island that grants eternal youth and wisdom at the price of total oblivion. Ironically Ash is almost most of her time already in that state of mind – a beautiful young survivor in your favourite present-game-show. At the climax of Avalon's story appears a potential male-female-love-encounter: First as an identity-reassuring phantasm since Ash apparently is playing the game to meet her loved-one. And last the encounter serves as a potential (emergency) exit to gain back a sense of human reality. 1 am going to argue that in either case human reality remains a lost concept, but worthwhile to be maintained as an illusion of real virtuality -- in order to avoid sudden death and other unbearable events within game-levels without a reset button.