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AVALON
AKA:
Gate To Avalon
Year:
2001 Reviewer: Rob
Daniel
Mamoru
Oshii is currently riding a wave of critical acclaim with the
Palme D'Or nominated 'Innocence', the sequel to his 1995
cyber-anime par excellence 'Ghost in the Shell'.
What better time to reappraise the underrated and
unjustly ignored 'Avalon', Oshii's fourth live action film
after 'Red Spectacles' (1987), it's sequel 'Stray Dog' (1991)
and 'Talking Head' (1992)?
'Avalon'
retains
Oshii's typical preoccupations with identity, illusion,
reality, basset hounds and high
calibre
firepower, but the hook is he and frequent collaborator Ito
upped sticks and went to Poland to make this overlooked gem.
In Polish no less.
Clunky
expository text informs us that in the near future a
disillusioned populace of an unnamed Eastern European country
seeks its thrills through an illegal, potentially deadly
underground virtual reality war game, Avalon.
More
successful is a fantastic opening battle sequence that
introduces us to the cloaked, heavily armed Ash (Foremniak), a
legendary lone wolf, battling lethal tanks and helicopters
against a changing backdrop of fields and bombed out towns.
Ash is haunted by the brain death of her old leader (Gudejko),
caused by an unauthorized "Reset" of the game.
Tipped off by an old Avalon colleague (Swiderski) about
the Special A "Phantom Field", she goes in search of
a famed young wraith who can provide access to this final
level and finally reveal the hidden secret of the game.
Rejecting
the population explosion of his anime, Oshii here looks
to the future by peering into the past.
Aided by Grzegorz Kedzierski's breathtaking faux-Game
Cube cinematography, the
game Avalon resembles a sepia-tinted World War 2 Eastern bloc
conflict rather than the arcade fantasia of 'Tron' or the
comic book cool of 'The Matrix'.
Only lethally sleek helicopters and wonderfully
realized 2-D explosions betray the artificiality.
Ash's real world is dilapidated and sparsely populated,
where the only colour pervading the grey gloom comes from
distasteful looking food or the sickly green glow of computer
monitors.
As
with the 'Ghost in Shell' and 'Patlabor' films, Oshii and Ito
back up their well-mounted dystopian future vision with some
ammunition for the brain.
Drawing upon Arthurian legend and the land of Avalon,
where warriors find their final resting place, the film posits
computer gamers as latter day knights, and suggests
spirituality now exists only between people and their
machines.
'Avalon'
also has no problem with ambiguities.
Nowhere is this more so than in the final act, when Ash
discovers what the Special A "Phantom Zone" actually
is. Or seems to
be. Which throws
up questions as to exactly what Avalon is.
A mere computer game?
A training ground for assassins?
While the film offers no easy answers and often
threatens to collapse into incoherence, it still dazzles,
thrills and probes in equal measures.
Some
may dismiss this merely as 'The Matrix' with opera.
Others will agree it is an example of science fiction
using its brain as well as its trigger finger.
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