Avalon (2001)

At first I found it amazing that a lot of people liked this movie so much. Then I remembered of the Forer effect and everything was clearer.The movie is very vague and all over the place and does not know that it wants. Also as someone that have both played games and worked for a brief time in the gaming industry I saw a lot of problems. But let's take things one of a time. Let's explain what happens in the movie. In more than 60% of the movie (the whole sepia thing) most things are not real. Is hard to tell if any part in the beginning is real. The class Real is the real world. The people in the hospitals that are in a coma are actually players that just logged out of the game and never returned. It is interesting to note that there are very few people in the first part of the game and that there appears not to be anyone in the hospital except the coma people. Also we do not see children animals (except for the one dog) blood (you would think sooner or later someone will cut his fingers with a knife).In the second part of the movie (Class Real) we see all the normal elements of real world. A lot of people said the colors were too bright, but if you spend a lot of time only seeing shades of gray and sepia when you get outside everything is brighter. The reason why the man disappears when she shots him is because she has mental break down. She cannot accept she really killed someone and here mind just rewrites everything.The dog in the car is irrelevant. She just noticed it because she likes that type of dog (maybe did not have one in real life). The reason the dog appears on some posters is because her mind creates hallucinations. How about the Bishop? This is the complicated part. I believe that originally the game was created to brainwash people into becoming assassins. Also the man at end probably tried to pull her off from the game even on the risk of his own life but failed. The message "welcome to Avalon" can mean either that she is a coma dreaming new levels, or that she just logged back on after killing the man.OK, now let me tell you what I find stupid and proof that the person directing this movie never played a game in his life:1. If they have technology for full VR then they will not have graphics this shitty.2. The random characters on the screens. It is the only thing copied directly from Matrix and in fact is one of the most stupid things about Matrix. Why would they be there? Making images from fonts has not been used for a long long long time. (if you did not have windows 95 on your computer you probably never seen such a game).3. The way object appear and disappear is stupid. Usually there are wreckage and dead bodies in the area for a while. They usually disappear either after a period of time or after you leave the area, never disappear instantly. 4. All the characters in the game are the same. In a real game like warcraft or whatever every character was significantly different and at high levels you would not be able to change your specialization so easy. Actually to change your specialization you would usually have to lose all your exp, and most of other stats.5.scenes repeated continuously and boring scenes like her cutting vegetables... really? was this interesting for anyone?6. No matter how realistic a virtual world is, usually the AI of the NPC is sacrificed. This means that doing something totally unexpected to a NPC (for instance kiss a waiter or punch it) will cause an strange and unrealistic response.I has high hopes for the movie. SAO-sword art online (at least the first part) was a great implementation of the virtual reality game idea.

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.

Avalon can be seen as part of a trilogy, the first installment of which would be Ghost in the Shell, the last, Ghost in the Shell: Innocence. Avalon contains many direct references to Ghost in the Shell, and shares a lot of its motif of philosophical search for the self. They also share the cyberpunk imagery, and the fact that the main heroine is an impassive female warrior. I mention all this because I think it's inadvisable to watch Avalon if you haven't watched Ghost in the Shell (and pondered on it a bit). Avalon can be extremely heavy at times. This movie does not make you think; watching Avalon is like trying to decipher a zen poem, which I think can be done, but not through intellectual decoding.In Avalon, a lone hunter in a virtual reality game shares her life with a basset dog, and all her activities seem to be centered around getting better in the illegal, dangerous game and getting food the dog with the money she earns there. The game is illegal because you can die playing it; "really" die in the concrete, bleak urban world that Ash, the main hero, lives every day. However, apart from the possibility of virtual death, the game offers a secret - the highest level, Avalon. The legendary Avalon is the "Isle of the Blessed", where King Arthur lies in eternal sleep. In the movie, it is a mystery, which haunts Ash ever since the deaths of her last player team.The search for Avalon is depicted in the most beautiful cinematography. The plot is very symbolic and should be considered so; the search for the gate to Avalon can mean many things, and the nature of the quest changes as Ash is getting closer. However, like Ghost in the Shell: Innocence, the movie is heavy and long, and the characters engage in philosophical discussion every time they can. With all its beautiful cinematography, interesting acting (very automaton-like, but intentionally so), and a set of intriguing philosophical questions, this movie suffers from heavy-handed imagery and symbols, sometimes. Hard science fiction pushes the science as far as possible; Avalon is an example of hard cyberpunk, where the confines of the conceptual world dreamed up by the director are explored fully and unremittingly.If you are ready to take a film not as only entertainment, but also a challenge to your thinking power, Avalon, like all Oshii's movies, is a thrill. However, beautiful, intellectually rewarding science fiction does not have to be longish and heavy, as Avalon is at times. Watch Ghost in the Shell before it, watch Ghost in the Shell: Innocence after it, and approach this movie at your most relaxed, for it to be a rewarding rewarding experience; it can wear you down, otherwise.One more thing: if you're Polish, watch the Japanese dub with English subtitles. The Polish lines were translated literally from the Japanese, and they are very often almost gibberish (and the Japanese voice-acting is better, too). Also, do not let the fact that the movie's virtual world seems to be set in your local K-mart detract from your watching experience.

Lot's of comments compare this movie to "The Matrix" but they don't point out the obvious difference: the plot of "Avalon" is the reverse of "The Matrix". In "The Matrix", the main character starts out in the game (the Matrix) and moves to the real world. In "Avalon", the main character (Ash) goes in the opposite direction.Another interesting point is that the philosophy of "Avalon" is the opposite of that of "The Matrix". In "The Matrix", living in reality is presented as the highest value, worth sacrificing comfort and security. In "Avalon", the point is that the real isn't morally superior to the artificial: choosing the artificial (i.e. virtual reality) is presented as a perfectly reasonable choice.There is a dispute about whether the first part of the movie is boring or just depicting a boring character. It's both. The problem is that the director apparently didn't realize that showing a boring life doesn't have to be boring. He could have used techniques such as showing a dull sequence, then referring to it briefly several times. "Groundhog Day" used that technique.A common complaint in many comments is that Ash is emotionless and her real world is bland, boring, and (almost literally) colorless. That is crucial to the movie: it has to make the point that Ash's life outside the game is meaningless.I like the fact that the movie combines Dungeons and Dragons, video games, and Multi User Dungeons, and it handles each of them accurately.We can summarize the point of the movie as: the artificial world we create can be better than the world we live in.