After reading this page Martijn van Troost sent these comments in. They make a lot of sense to me, and brought about something of a revelation. The key point in Martijn’s take on the film is that we are seeing it all through and not just from Ash’s perspective – an important thing to keep remembering as the non sequiturs are presented; for instance this explains why we see the Ghost in the hospital just as Stunner is talking about her. We are seeing the world as it is perceived by Ash, not the world around her as is typical in filmwork. Martijn’s whole email is presented here with permission.
“I saw Avalon last week in Amsterdam and read your thoughts on the movie with pleasure.
“I think one of the key elements in the movie is the relationship between VR and reality (R). In the first part of the movie (before level SA) the audience is witness to the struggle of Ash to distinguish between VR and R. It is clear that she knows that VR is just a game, but on the other hand she feels more alive in VR than in R. This is apparent in her mundane routine colorless life. She craves more and more to be in VR. The link with real life fades and the dog is one of her last lifelines (links to reality). The significance of the food is that eating is a typical R-type of behavior. The eating scences show the limitation of humans as physical beings to exist in VR. In this way we are equal to all creatures, such as the dog. Note that Ash tries to sever this link with reality by refusing to eat.
“Whereas Ash knows deep down that R is real and VR isn’t, the second part of the movie (Ash in level SA) shows Ash to percieve VR as more real (shown by the colors) than R. An interesting detail is the Avalon posters which read “stop Avalon” in the first part, but are transformed to “Avalon” posters showing the dog promoting an opera. No longer have bad notion of Avalon a place in the mind of Ash. The dog being her life line in reality has become her lifeline in VR. The disappearence of the dog symbolizes the journey of Ash from R to VR.
“I think the last text of the film “Welcome to Avalon” tells us Ash now has become one of the unreturned. She has crossed the border of killing in a game or VR context and killing in reality (She killed murphy in VR, but this has become reality for her). This is the most important theme of the film I believe, because it is a metaphor for choices we make in life every day. We can think about a lot of things, but doing it is a totally other matter. Ash is one who actually did it and wil find herself changed in the process as she no longer can return to what she was.
“This film is a protest against war as I see it. As VR is shown as a place of warfare, everybody knows that R is also a place of warfare. In a fact we are already in VR and we have already crossed the border between R and VR. Society is itself an unreturned and will remain unreturned, or can we leave Avalon and return to reality as we still await the return of the legendary King Arthur.
“(This theme has a parallel with William Golding’s The Lord of the flies, where the childeren are rescued from the island and the horrible society they themself have crafted by some passing marines. The children return to normal, but who is there to safe the marines from the horrible society they have created.)”