| Product: |
Avalon (DVD) |
| Date: |
24.02.07 (76 review reads) |
| Rating: |
 |
Advantages: Visually unique mix of art film and sci - fi movie - half Matrix half Eastern European masterpiece
Disadvantages: The dodgy aria that is sung throughout the film
Something of an oddity by anime director Mamoru Oshii, Avalon is a live action film, written, produced and directed by the Japanese but filmed in Poland, in Polish with Poles in all roles. Hardly what you would expect from the director of the influential Ghost in the Shell and its sequel, but then again maybe it is.
On the surface Avalon looks to be one of those movies influenced, like so many alongside it, by the matrix - but, frankly, it's nothing of the sort. Without going into details of plot (as of yet, anyway), one important point to make of the film is that it treats the unusual and the mundane everydayness of life with equal skill and respect. Both are rendered visually stunning; thus though, as will be somewhat revealed, though there is considerable story to be told there are also moments which are remarkably everyday. Often even the everyday events are curiously disturbing, and instil a sense of uncertainty in the viewer.
The story has many similarities to Oshii's previous Ghost in the Shell and reminiscent in part of William Gibson's cyberpunk novels (Neuromancer et al), though Avalon is very much its own entity.
The story, on the surface, is really rather trite. In a rather nameless city, whether or not it's meant to be Warsaw is never explicated, and a rather timeless setting of gothic romanticism, Ash (played with deliciously icy detachment by Malgorzata Foremniak) is one amongst many who plays an illegal computer game - the titular Avalon - (that rather like in the Matrix, you have to plug yourself into - and again here, where is reality? What is real? But back to that later) that leaves some 'unreturned', i.e. brain-dead. Nevertheless, many, like Ash, who have completed level after level, earn their living from the game, trading points for money. Ash, is a loner, though once a member of a team called Wizard, the most successful team in the history of the game that was disbanded for reasons unknown… then, returning into her life is Stunner, one time member of Wizard telling a story concerning Murphy, the man who led Wizard. Murphy has joined the ranks of Unreturned and Stunner tells a second story concerning a ghost within Avalon that leads to a higher, secret level within the game.
As I say, it's a trite story on the surface and inspired by Oshii having played a computer game, called Wizard, in which he was able to create a virtual fortune, which led him to wondering why such fortunes could not be turned into real money. Thus, the basis of Avalon was founded.
But why does the film work when the plot is so, well, unoriginal. The reasons are numerous. The first is the look of the film. Each scene, until the end, was digitally manipulated, affecting the colour and creating images of stunning originality and often beauty. There colour is never quite sepia, but also never quite black and white or colour. The careful and delicate hues give each scene a striking and hypnotic appearance, whether it's the fields or crumbling towers within Avalon itself, or the everyday gothicness of what we shall assume is Warsaw - as a tram rattles forwards towards a corner building where each window glows achingly and the buildings seem as if obscured a greyish-brownish film. Visually, Oshii often counterbalances subdued colours with fierce glows.
The city plays a great part in the film. There is a balance in the film between interior and exterior. Noticeably in the game itself there is a tendency towards more open spaces, whether these are rolling fields (filled with tanks, usually) or wide romantically gothic streets - Avalon has an openness, a sense of space that reflects Ash's freedom and mastery over the game. It is clear from the beginning that she is both a loner and an important icon in the game. She doesn't mix with other players, she shuns contact, but within those spaces she is in control. Also, life there is moving - crowds run from falling bombs, teams of players fire at tanks in the hope of completing another mission. There is life, albeit violent life. There is a sense of crowdedness, of interconnectivity with other people, even if there is no contact. Warsaw, in the real world, is disturbingly different. Almost the only signs of life are Ash's beloved beagle (which appears again, in animated form, in Oshii's Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence) and Stunner. When Ash leaves the run down building that is home to the suites that house the gaming rooms for Avalon, spaces feel more claustrophobic. As she leaves, she climbs the stair and there are people milling about but, hang on a minute, they're not milling about. They're not even moving. Like mannequins they are, except one of them, their dog moves. Equally, as Ash stands within the tram that rocks its way through the city the other passengers are entirely immobile. They're stiff, almost lifeless, like models placed there to give the suggestion of life - idle characters in a game that have no purpose but exist to suggest verisimilitude. Thus we are asked to question what is real. Is it Warsaw, is it Avalon, or is it the secret level within Avalon that Ash wishes to find, as within that level she suspects is Murphy? In true Oshii style he doesn't give us an answer but allows us to make up our own mind. Each location is stylistically different, but each has their own suggestion of reality. Even though, in Warsaw ,the only characters that seem to speak are Ash, Stunner - who becomes Ash's conduit to the secret level in Avalon and reminds us that there is life in Warsaw that is real (though is this because he is also a player, his character being Stunner, within the game that is Warsaw?), and the 'priest' who searches Ash out, and has a mysterious connection to Avalon (perhaps he is one of the 'seven sisters' who rule Avalon?).
But then, to return to an earlier point, a computer game rarely interests itself in 'real life'. As we often follow Ash as she performs mundane tasks within her life in Warsaw - which we never see in Avalon - such a buying meat from the butcher, and most importantly when she cooks for her dog. Here Oshii takes us through her preparations with every bit as much care and visual interest that he does when Ash storms through Avalon dominatrix-style. Thus we are given no easy answers as to what we imagine to be real.
But then we must return to the title of the film: Avalon, the isle where King Arthur was taken to heal, the isle for dead heroes to rest. Ash is a hero of a kind, but not a dead one; but then when she moves, as we know she must, to the secret level within Avalon, does she join the Unreturned, sitting unknowing in a hospital somewhere and thus as good as dead. Is this Avalon? Or is Avalon Warsaw, where is allowed mastery of the game called Avalon and the affection of her dog in Warsaw simultaneously. The answer, I would imagine, is unique to every viewer and this ambiguity is what gives the film its strength and repeated watchability. Well, also this is due to the visuals and the care with which the film is crafted. Avalon is a hypnotic film for the most part; the visuals and the way in which sound is used suck you in.
The acting, too is never less than excellent, Malgorzata Foremniak as Ash is superb. Having little dialogue she acts through subtle gesture and when she does speak it is usually with breathy impatience or frustration - she is demonstrative but in a low-key way, unlike when we meet Jerzy Gudejko's rather theatrical Murphy; though his character works because it demands a certain over the top extravagance, a slightly hysterical demeanour. Equally, Bartlomiej Swiderski is alternatively intriguing and slightly grotesque - his eating habits wouldn't grace the most sophisticated table - as Stunner, but the performance is pitched perfectly between the two. The supporting cast are all excellent; there are no weak links, though some might argue that Ash's beagle really steals the show. And that beagle is full of character, let me tell you.
There is one minus though - there is a repeated aria in Avalon, which I think is written for the film, and often used as a part of montages - here it works, as we watch Ash go about her daily life in Warsaw but towards the end Oshii shows us a performance of this aria, which is frankly not very good. It works when we follow Ash because it somehow matches the visuals but when Oshii allows the camera to linger upon the orchestra and the soprano you feel he's not really sure what to do with the camera and he does lose a bit of his visual interest. It's not lazy but you feel Oshii overstretches himself. In part this is because the aria isn't all that good. If it had been then the music would have carried the scene, instead it is the one weak point in an otherwise excellent film.
Avalon feels more like an Eastern European art movie than an action film and that is the reason why it works. I remember a description of the visuals for Krzysztof Kieslowski A Short Film about Killing, which was that it was filmed like "Warsaw the colour of phlegm" and Avalon is filmed more like Kieslowski's film than a Hollywood blockbuster. It is intelligent, at time exciting but always intriguing as well as visually unique. It's intriguing that on its UK release it was shown in one cinema, at the (admittedly oft pretentious) Institute of Contemporary Arts on The Mall. That says it all for the film, I think: art movie and action film, but somehow better than most of both.
Summary: Visually unique mix of art film and sci - fi movie - half Matrix half Eastern European masterpiece
|
|
