Avalon (2001)

Director:

Mamoru Oshii

Writer:

Kazunori Itô (writer)

Release Date:

20 January 2001 (Japan)

Genre:

Drama | Fantasy | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

Dare to enter a world of future videogames

Plot:

In a future world, young people are increasingly becoming addicted to an illegal (and potentially deadly) battle simulation game called Avalon...

Plot Keywords:

Dog | War Game | Color | Helicopter | Purse Snatcher

Awards:

3 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Malgorzata Foremniak	...	Ash
Wladyslaw Kowalski	...	Game Master
Jerzy Gudejko	...	Murphy
Dariusz Biskupski	...	Bishop
Bartlomiej Swiderski	...	Stunner (as Bartek Swiderski)
Katarzyna Bargielowska	...	Receptionist
Alicja Sapryk	...	Gill
Michal Breitenwald	...	Murphy of Nine Sisters
Zuzanna Kasz	...	Ghost
Adam Szyszkowski	...	Player A
Krzysztof Szczerbinski	...	Player B (as Krszysztof Szczerbinski)
Marek Stawinski	...	Player C
Jaroslaw Budnik	...	Cooper (voice)
Andrzej Debski	...	Cusinart (voice)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Zdzislaw Szymborski	...	Man at Philharmonic (uncredited)
Elzbieta Towarnicka	...	Soloist at Philharmonic (uncredited)

Directed by
Mamoru Oshii

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Kazunori Itô		writer

Produced by
Takehiko Chino	....	associate producer
Ryoichi Fukuyama	....	associate producer
Kazumi Kawashiro	....	co-producer
Tetsu Kayama	....	executive producer
Shinji Komori	....	associate producer
Atsushi Kubo	....	producer
Takenari Maeda	....	associate producer
Yasuki Miki	....	associate producer
Katsuharu Nagata	....	associate producer
Katsuhiro Ogawa	....	assistant producer
Naoyuki Sakagami	....	executive producer
Toru Shiobara	....	executive producer
Nobuyuki Tohya	....	associate producer
Shin Unozawa	....	co-producer
Shigeru Watanabe	....	executive producer

Original Music by
Kenji Kawai

Cinematography by
Grzegorz Kedzierski

Film Editing by
Hiroshi Okuda

Production Design by
Barbara Nowak
Takashi Watabe

Production Management
Masato Araki	....	production manager
Janusz B. Czech	....	production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Makoto Kamiya	....	special assistant director
Isao Kaneko	....	first assistant director

Art Department
Hiroyuki Hayashi	....	digital art director
Yoshihisa Kato	....	imageboard designer
Tom Miller	....	property master
Tanake Watabe	....	art designer
Waldemar Weiss	....	construction coordinator

Sound Department
Shuji Inoue	....	sound designer
Tom Myers	....	sound designer
Tom Myers	....	sound re-recording mixer
Randy Thom	....	sound designer
Randy Thom	....	sound re-recording mixer
Kazuhiro Wakabayashi	....	sound director
Stuart McCowan	....	assistant sound designer (uncredited)

Visual Effects by
Nobuaki Koga	....	visual effects supervisor

Camera and Electrical Department
Piotr Obloza	....	gaffer

Animation Department
Atsushi Takeuchi	....	mechanical designer

Editorial Department
Reiko Saitoh	....	assistant to editor

Music Department
Elzbieta Towarnicka	....	musician: soprano

Other crew
Seiichi Tanaka	....	title designer: main titles
Kazue Yoneda	....	production assistant
Akiko Yukawa	....	production assistant

Production Companies

• Deiz Production
• Bandai Visual Company (presenters)
• Media Factory (presenters)
• Dentsu Productions Ltd. (presenters)
• Nippon Herald Films (presenters)

Distributors

• A-Film Distribution (2002) (Netherlands) (theatrical)
• Monopole-Pathé (2002) (Switzerland) (theatrical)
• A-Film Home Entertainment (200?) (Netherlands) (video)
• Blue Dolphin Film Distribution
• Buena Vista Home Video
• Central Partnership (Russia)
• Cinévia Films
• Des Films (France) (DVD)
• Herald Film Company (Japan)
• Kinowelt Home Entertainment (Germany)
• Madman Entertainment (2004) (Australia) (all media)
• Miramax Films (USA) (subtitled)
• SBP (Argentina) (DVD)
• SBP (Argentina) (VHS)
• Studio Canal (France) (DVD)

Special Effects

• Motor/lieZ
• Omnibus Japan
• SpFX Studio
• deiz

Other Companies

• Chór Filharmonii Narodowej  group cast members: choir (as Warsaw Philharmonic Choir)
• Filharmonia Narodowa  filmed at
• Orkiestra Symfoniczna Filharmonii Narodowej  group cast members: orchestra (as Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra)
• Skywalker Sound  post-production sound services

Also Known As:

Avalon (International: English title)
Gate to Avalon (Hong Kong: English title) (video box title)

MPAA:

Rated R for some violence.

Runtime:

106 min

Country:

Japan | Poland

Language:

Polish

Color:

Color | Black and White (Sepiatone)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital EX

Certification:

Italy:T | South Korea:15 | Canada:PG | Germany:12 | Netherlands:12 | Switzerland:14 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:14 (canton of Vaud) | UK:12 | USA:R | Australia:M | Argentina:13

Filming Locations:

Filharmonia Narodowa, Warsaw, Poland

Company:

Deiz Production

Trivia:

The Orchestra seen at the end of the movie is the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, who along with the Tokyo Pop Orchestra performed the score of the film.

Goofs:

Continuity: When Ash starts searching for The Nine Sisters, she enters some keywords and the results show up on the monitor of her computer. However, the reflection on her glasses doesn't match what happens on her screen.

Quotes:

Ash: Is this what you wanted? For this you abandoned us all? To spend the rest of your life as a hollow shell in a hospital bed, staring at nothing?
Murphy: How can you be so sure? Do I look like a hollow shell? Do I? Reality is only what we tell ourselves it is! That's all! I choose this one. I prefer this reality.

Movie Connections:

References Kôkaku kidôtai (1995)

Strengths & weaknesses of a pretty good film

There is a lot to recommend this movie, including a richly-stylized world, exciting action, and excellent music. I will admit that I was first interested in this movie because I knew of the director Mamoru Oshii from the anime "Ghost in the Shell", so I wasn't surprised to find that the movie felt much like a very stylized high-quality anime movie. Indeed, I wasn't surprised that the Japanese director revealed (in an interview included with the DVD I watched) that his relationship with the Polish actress playing the main character Ash was much like his relationship with a character from one of his anime projects, since he could no more communicate personally with Malgorzata Foremniak than he could with one of his anime characters. To him, the actress was entirely her character, and it's intriguing to see what became of that very unusual relationship on film.

I'm always wary of getting carried away with a first reaction to a film, so I should admit that this film isn't perfect. I found myself wanting to know more about the background of the main character, and her family, and how she came to become the person we see in the film; certainly, Malgorzata Foremniak does a very good job of playing a character whose fantasy life (the life of her online RPG character) is more real than her 'real' life, but the lack of background detail makes her character Ash very much like a two-dimensional anime character, and that can be considered a weakness. Also, this movie bears an obvious similarity to "The Matrix" (which predated it), so most viewers will inevitably compare this movie to "The Matrix" and find it perhaps wanting in that it doesn't lay out the background of the virtual world of the Avalon RPG as clearly as "The Matrix" lays out the background of its world.

These factors notwithstanding, I still enjoyed "Avalon" and I recommend it to anyone with more than a passing interest in virtual reality stories, anime, or highly-stylized science fiction in general. In the aforementioned interview, the director mentions that his films tend to deal with a borderline between fantasy and reality, and it's quite apparent that Ash's 'real world' is somehow both grittier, and less real, than the world of the Avalon RPG which she's so obsessed with. The action sequences in the film (featuring real-world equipment from the Polish army, such as tanks and attack helicopters) are exciting in their own right, but the special effects of the film (such as explosions reduced to 2-D images and bystanders who disintegrate when shot) make it clear what is supposedly real and what is supposedly virtual. Also, the contrast between fantasy and reality is much more vivid here than in the Matrix movies - and that's especially apparent toward the end of the movie where the viewer is left to wonder just what (if anything) is ultimately real, and what is simply imagined. Also, I must say that the music of this film is extraordinary, including choral music that is downright eerie, but also beautiful at the same time. A world both real and unreal is conjured very effectively in this movie, and therefore I would recommend it to any fans of this sub-genre of science fiction in particular, and fans of highly-stylized film-making in general.