I saw Avalon first in July 2002 during the Cambridge Film Festival. When one of my friends mentioned the name Mamoru Oshii my ears pricked up – over the last couple of years I’ve been developing a taste for Anime and Ghost In The Shell was both a formative experience there and still one of my favourites. My favourites aren’t always mainstream – Angel Cop is probably my #2.
Avalon is a movie set in the near future about a player (Ash) of an illegal virtual reality game (called Avalon) who seeks the way to a special level where a former friend (lover?) has become trapped mentally leaving his body as a vegetable. I’ve tried to be concise there, and lost a lot of the flavour. Try this, from the film’s opening, instead:
The near future. Some people deal with their disillusionment by seeking out illusions of their own – in an illegal virtual reality war game. Its simulated thrills and deaths are compulsive and addictive. Some players, working in teams called ‘parties’ even earn their living from the game. The game has its dangers. Sometimes it can leave a player brain-dead, needing constant medical care. Such victims are called ‘unreturned’. The game is named after the legendary island where the souls of departed heroes come to rest: Avalon.
Avalon is not Ghost In The Shell though, although it touches on some similar ideas – it is another exploration of reality and just whose perspective you’re looking at it from. Where it differs significantly is that Avalon is not an animated film. It’s live, filmed in Poland with a Polish/Japanese crew and Polish actors. That said, it has been extensively post-processed to apply colour draining, highlighting and special effects.
This may sound a little reminiscent of the Matrix, and the two are in similar enough territory that it’s hard to resist comparisons, However Avalon is two things Matrix is not. First, it’s a very introspective, thought-provoking film, with no clear resolution and lots of questions to ponder along the way. Second, although it has action sequences (and impressive they are too, with genuine military hardware from the Polish army) it’s not a VR action film even though the trailers might give that impression.
It’s a case where the whole is a worthy sum of its parts: a thought-provoking story which resists the Hollywood urge to explain everything; excellent casting and acting; settings which truly complement the story; and a soundtrack where Kenji Kawai shows his ability to turn his skills to composing an orchestral and choral soundtrack that fits perfectly with the film.
The rights for the film have been bought by Miramax, so there will presumably be a theatrical release at some point. It’s reported that Neil Gaiman will be working on the script. It may be dubbed since the original dialogue is in Polish, but I really hope not. I also hope Hollywood resists the urge to try to fill in the areas that have been deliberately left vague. In the meantime though, Avalon is becoming a favourite at film festivals, and is already available on DVD and CD soundtrack. After seeing the film I wanted to own it on DVD, and this site is intended as a one-stop information resource about what’s available about Avalon at the moment and where it can be bought from.
For the people who want the answers quickly, go to http://www.animebooks.com/ for the Making Of book, and http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/ for the soundtrack and DVD memorial edition. The single disc DVD can be ordered from http://www.movietyme.com/ This does not represent an endorsement of any of these – I’ve used them successfully, but your mileage may vary. Keep an eye on eBay too – the single and double DVDs show up quite often.
If you have any updates to the information here send me an email at ninesisters – at – chorazin – dot – org
Why ninesisters.org ? If you’ve seen the film you”ll get the reference 🙂
Alan