2001: Avalon (Aka アヴァロン) (71st)

What else happened this year? Everything was just fine until September 11^th

What is the plot - in one sentence? Ash, who lives in a dystopian, sepia world, makes her living gaming on an illegal network, and is intrigued by a mysterious Bishop-like figure who appears in her games.

I don't have time, just spoil it for me? Eventually, she forms a group with the bishop, ascends to a level known as ‘real world’ (which is in full colour), and there she hunts down her former group leader. In the real world it seems he’s an upper crust type, while in the sepia world he’s comatose. She kills him and loads up her gun again, with the screen telling her that she’s won. Oh, and for some reason, she’d been covering up for the guy she kills, for some reason that I didn’t understand, and from the looks of it, no one else does either.

What is the meaning of the title? There’s a bit of mythology about Camelot and King Arthur throughout the game that they play, and an operatic version of the song Avalon occurs at a few times of the movie, but Avalon is the name of the game system that they play within.

Here's our hero, surrounded by not-at-all-Matrix-like cyberscrawl.

Anything that's not aged well? Does a woman get slapped around? Almost amazingly, no one gets slapped around! What ages it is that it’s so obviously been inspired by the Matrix, and that the scenes at the end are set in contemporary Poland, which is kind of interesting to see. 

Any thoughts? This was a very difficult movie to track down, and I’d seen various bits of it online but with errors and issues that made them unwatchable. I finally managed to track it down (this was in Polish, with subs, but I think there’s an English dub), and it was a little disappointing that it is what it is.

This is made by the same guy who did ‘Ghost in the Shell’ – and you can see some similarities between that and this: there are a few music-led montages of action which Ghost in the Shell was famous for, and the main character (a striking looking woman) owns a bassett hound, another similarity: She shouldn’t own it, as she just leaves it alone all day.

Would you recommend this? It’s weird, Ghost in the Shell and this are by the same director. Ghost in the shell inspired the Matrix, while this is a pretty obvious rip-off of the matrix, without the era defining action, style, or philosophy. It looks great, though, and it’s certainly an interesting approach: a sci-fi set in Poland by a Japanese director – there aren’t many movies like that.

Final thoughts? It’s like 100 minutes long: she has an action scene (in game) first thing, then spends a lot of time looking for the Bishop, has a single mission with him, and then heads to the ‘real world’ – it’s safe to say that they could have trimmed a lot of time out of that and it would have had no impact.

The final assassination takes place at a concert performance of the song ‘Avalon’ – and it’s very nice, but she shoots her guy (some nondescript Polish fellow) during the song, and then the concert finishes – was it a 1 song concert? Let’s say yes.

Click right HHHEEERRRRREEEE for the other 70 reviews here. Is it terrible that I can't wait for it to be over?