Avalon - game for your life
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Avalon - game for your life |
| Original title | Avalon |
| Country of production |
Japan , Poland |
| original language | Polish |
| Publishing year | 2001 |
| length | 106 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Mamoru Oshii |
| script | Kazunori Itō |
| production | Atsushi Kubo |
| music | Kenji Kawai |
| camera | Grzegorz Kedzierski |
| cut | Hiroshi Okuda |
| occupation | |
| |
Avalon - play for your life (Original title: Avalon , Jap. アヴァロン , Avaron ) is a Japanese - Polish science fiction film from the year resulted in 2001. Directed by Mamoru Oshii , who primarily by anime films like Ghost in the Shell announced has become. The film was co-produced by a Polish and a Japanese film company, the actors are of Polish origin and it was filmed in Polish. The production costs were approximately eight million euros .
Avalon is an illegal computer game that offers a virtual, violent world in which individual players and teams fight each other and which, from a certain level , can cost the player his or her life. Ash, a professional player, trying a mysterious, elusive level, called Special A find.
action
Ash lives in a not far distant, dreary future. Ash is one of the few women who take part in Avalon as a solo player. Avalon is an illegal, dangerous computer game. Ash not only earns a living with it, Avalon has become her life. She takes the tram back and forth between her apartment and the arcade.
In order to be able to participate in Avalon, the individual players go into a room where they find a helmet and a couch. The game master appears on a terminal hanging on the wall , who gives the players final instructions or to whom the players can tell in which scenery they want to start the game. As soon as a player lies down and puts on his helmet, the game begins. The helmet connects the player's brain with the computer and he enters a virtual world.
The world of Avalon is violent and it is up to the player to kill as many opponents as possible while completing various tasks in order to complete a level. The player receives points for completing the tasks as well as for eliminating the opponents, which he can withdraw in cash. There are different character classes in Avalon (thieves, warriors, wizards and bishops are mentioned in the film). In order to survive and reach further levels, players form teams.
Ash used to belong to a team, the famous Team Wizard , but it disbanded for mysterious reasons. The game can become life-threatening, there is the possibility that a player's brain is practically erased and he vegetates as a brain-dead person. Rumor has it that the ghosts of the killed players will "live on" in a secret level.
Ash, who has so far successfully completed every level and every scenario on her own, wants to penetrate this level to find out whether the spirit of Murphys, who was once the leader of her team and is now vegetating as a brain-dead in a hospital, is actually in this level is located. Stunner, another former member of her team, gives you information about how they called in this level Special A can penetrate. Only the ghost in the form of a little girl can get her in there. However, the Spirit can only be found with the help of a bishop. For some inexplicable reason, she is visited shortly afterwards by a bishop in her apartment, who arranges a meeting with her in Avalon. Together with the bishop, who has put together a team of warriors and thieves, Ash fights through the level and finally reaches the ghost. When Ash tries to shoot the ghost, she learns that she has now reached a new level, level real .
Real level
Ash finds herself in her cabin. When she takes off the helmet, she learns from the bishop that she only has one weapon with a single magazine and that she can only return from this level if she kills the ghosts of the brain-dead players - the missing ones. Ash leaves the arcade and finds himself in a world that seems more real than the one her body is in, because it is full of bright colors and many different people move around in it very relaxed. After walking around town for a while in amazement, she discovers an advertising pillar with posters referring to the concert. While she is studying this, a car drives past her from which her missing beagle looks at her, but which she does not notice. To get to the concert, she takes the subway. In contrast to the tram in its physical world, in which the same approx. 7 adults stand or sit immobile in the same positions every time, this tram is now full to the brim with completely different people, including children, who do not appear in their world. She continues to walk uncertainly, cautiously as in a war zone and purposefully through the city, to the concert hall. There she meets Murphy in the crowd of concert goers.
After the audience has gone to the concert, an argument breaks out between her and Murphy, who both went outside, about their mutual past as members of the unbeatable Team Wizard and its breakup. He explains to her that he thinks this world is the real reality. Ash sees it differently. Murphy advises Ash that if one of them dies in the duel that must inevitably follow and his body does not dissolve, as is usual in Avalon, this must be the real world. In a duel, Ash shoots Murphy, who is fatally hit and falls to the ground.
Ash kneels next to Murphy's corpse, which after a short time disappears into nothing. Ash is now certain that this is not the reality and goes back to the concert hall. There the ghost of Avalon stands on the stage and looks blankly at Ash, who points her weapon at the ghost. The ghost then smiles challengingly at Ash, the screen goes black and the words Welcome to Avalon appear.
Characters
- Ash ( Małgorzata Foremniak ) struggles through life as a solo warrior in Avalon. Your game brings you money and prestige. She spends her free time exclusively with her dog, for whom she lovingly prepares real meat and real vegetables, while she only eats vodka and cigarettes. Curious, Ash goes on the hunt for the leader of her former team Wizard in order to track down the breakup of the group. It seems like she blamed herself for spreading that she triggered the reset that led to the team's deletion. In order to achieve her goal, she dares to entrust herself to a new team.
- Stunner ( Bartlomiej Swiderski ) was Wizard's thief . He introduces himself as a scout and a kind of pilot. So he sells information and always encourages or challenges Ash at the right time and spurs them to act. Stunner would like to go to the secret Level Special A himself , but cannot make it independently and would like to be part of a strong team again. It attacks the mind , forcing it to withdraw and move only within a wall. When Ash becomes aware of the attack, Stunner finds the virtual death and shortly before his dissolution confides in Ash that he is responsible for the reset and thus for the destruction of Wizard .
- Archbishop ( Dariusz Biskupski ) is the leader of the new team. According to Stunner, it is necessary for the spirit to show itself at all. Ash makes the assumption that he is on the side of the game and not a regular player. Since the Game Master is also a bishop and it is not clear whether he is sitting at his own terminal or is part of the system, it is reasonable to assume that the archbishop runs between the worlds, i.e. is part of both realities. He knows and leads to the path that lies between the worlds. The allusion to the apostles' descendants as well as the strange overlap between the game and Ash's apartment when they first met, confirm this.
- Murphy ( Jerzy Gudejko ) is the former leader of Wizard . He understands the real level as his reality while his body is in a coma in Ash's world. In the course of the argument with Ash, it becomes clear that he has provoked the deletion of Wizard in order to seek the ghost unhindered in order to lose himself in the game. The fact that the real level is part of the game shows in Murphy's desire for real pain in a real body. Out of this longing, he lets Ash shoot him.
background
The title of the film is derived from the name of the island Avalon from the Arthurian legend . Numerous references to the Arthurian legend are made. So it should have been Nine Sisters who programmed the game Avalon, based on the nine fairy queens who rule over the mythical island and bring the dying Arthur there. In the film, Ash tries to elicit information from the Game Master and procures books about the Arthurian legend, which in the end do not help her.
reception
The film was released in Japanese cinemas on January 20, 2001 and was shown at numerous film festivals in the following months. This was followed by theatrical releases in some European countries, including on April 12, 2002 in Poland, where it was seen 13,005 times. It started in German-speaking Switzerland on April 18, 2002 and had 7,309 visitors there.
At the Sitges - Catalonian International Film Festival 2001 Grzegorz Kedzierski was awarded in the category Best Cinematography . The film itself was also nominated for Best Film , but had to admit defeat to the French fantasy horror film Vidocq , directed by Pitof . Avalon - Game for Your Life won for Best Cinematography at the Durban International Film Festival in South Africa and Best Film at the London Sci-Fi Film Festival . The film magazine VideoWoche wrote about the film: "Ballerspiel goes Arthouse, a mandatory film for the well-stocked action and SF collection with cult potential."
Web links
- Avalon - Play for your life in the Internet Movie Database (English)