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Avalon (2001 film)
Encyclopedia
is a 2001 science-fiction film by Japanese filmmaker Mamoru Oshii
. The name of the film originates from the island Avalon
in the legend of King Arthur
.
video game called Avalon. Despite its popularity the game can be deadly, leaving players' bodies catatonic in the real world. One player of the game, Ash (played by Polish actress Małgorzata Foremniak), hears of a secret level
hidden within Avalon. The film follows her quest to find the level.
The film's colour palette is mainly sepia tones, helping to blur the line between the real world and that within the game itself.
The film is typically Mamoru Oshii styled in its pacing and editing. It is relatively slow paced, reinforcing the mundane nature of the world Ash lives in and highlighting the excitement of playing the game. The film features a basset hound
, a breed of dog common in Oshii's films, since he has one, named Gabriel.
The film's score
is by regular Oshii collaborator, Kenji Kawai
.
with Polish dialogue. A Japanese dub was created however for the films original Japanese release and is also available on the Japanese region 2 DVD.
"Shooting it in Japan was impossible," Oshii advised interviewer Andrez Bergen in a major article that appeared in Japan's Daily Yomiuri newspaper in 2004. "I didn't think of using a Japanese cast. I considered shooting in the UK or Ireland, but the towns and scenery in Poland matched my image for the movie."
In Europe, Avalon was screened out of competition at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival
and won awards at other European festivals: in Spain, it was awarded "Best Cinematography" at the Catalonian International Film Festival
(2001), and in the United Kingdom, it won the "Best Film" award at Sci-Fi-London
(2002).
However, the film received only limited release in North America (with most of its fanbase created via the circulation of bootleg
DVDs imported from Asia) until Miramax released it on DVD
in late 2003. The North American version has added narration to make it easier for the audience to understand the plot; although the option to view the film without the English overdubbing is provided, the subtitles still display the added dialogue. The British region-free DVD has literal English subtitles which explain the King Arthur connection better and does not display added dialogue.
Such viewer help was not used in European countries, like France, where local editions only feature optional subtitles about the Polish sung opera piece, in the Polish spoken original version only.
video game. Players fight with modern, medieval and fantasy weapons in a world marked by war. In-game earned credits can be exchanged in real life for currency. Sometimes, usually with higher level players, a player's spirit may stay inside the game, and the body stays vegetating in hospitals in the real world.
Oshii describes his game as a "military
RPG" (ミリタリーロールプレー, miritarīrōrupurē). However, it mixes elements of Role Playing Game
(such as character classes and experience points) and First Person Shooter (FPS) (utilizing real firearms such as semi-auto pistols (Walther PPK
and Mauser C96
), sniper rifle (Dragunov SVD) and rocket launcher (RPG-7
)); and it also borrows from the Wizardry
series Oshii played extensively during three years he was unemployed in the 1980s.
With these two genres, it shares the common principle of player hierarchy. In Avalon, players are ranked after three levels, Class C, Class B, Class A. Elite Class A players are rumored to be able to play a hidden extra mode featuring different rules and named Class SA (for "Special A").
To complete levels within the game, players must defeat powerful end-of-level bosses similar to those found in classic video games.
Players wear headsets which immerse their senses in the game world. The design of the headset and chair installation are influenced by the cult French
SF
short film, La jetée
.
As an interesting first, this movie features the appearance of lag
, a gameplay error due to network transfer slowdown often encountered in online games. Oshii displays lag as an ailment that causes physical convulsions in the player during these slowdowns.
The scene with Ash in the tramway is a live action recreation of a similar scene appearing in the 1999 anime feature film Jin-Roh
, which Oshii wrote but did not direct. This scene is based on Oshii's own teenage experience, when he used to spend entire days spinning in loop in the Yamanote Line
.
A display shows a tactical map, with symbols indicating various units and their statistics. The map fades to a view of real tanks
plowing through a grassy plain, firing at an unseen enemy. Aerial units destroy the tanks, with the blast freezing in mid-air, showing that they are actually rendered 2D graphics. A woman in combat armor teleports into the area, which becomes a cityscape. She watches crowds running away from the numerous tanks that have appeared. other soldiers, similar to the woman, fire uselessly at the tanks.
The tanks kill several citizens, but as they die, they unfold into 2D shapes and explode. The woman sneaks up on the tank and climbs on. She grabs the machine gun and kills some soldiers. She then kills a soldier trying to escape, stating that he's not ready for Class A. She's playing a virtual-reality game, and the "soldiers" she killed earlier were also players.
A chopper bombs and kills the populace, then fades away in the sky. A short while later, a number of players run across the plain and the woman teleports in. The chopper appears and the players shoot at it, with no effect. The chopper then kills several players. Meanwhile, the woman runs to an abandoned building and trains her sniper scope on the chopper. She fires into the cabin, causing it to swing out of control. The woman climbs uses a tank mounted machine gun to shoot at the chopper until it explodes. The explosion kills several players, but then the game stops and declares the mission is complete. Satisfied, the woman leaves. Unknown to her, a man in a cloak watches her through his scope and smiles.
The next day, Ash watches as a player on the lobby battle screen, the same man who spied on her the day before, breaks her record time on the Class A mission. Annoyed at being surpassed, Ash logs in to find the player's stats, but he has no name and his game access point is unknown. Entering her booth, Ash is told by the GM that her turn is not yet ready. Ash cancels her game and requests more information about the player "Bishop" from the GM. The GM wonders why Ash is interested in him, as she had never contacted with another player. Ash reveals that she feels she is being challenged by him.
Later, as Ash leaves the Avalon center, she runs into Stunner, a Thief class player and a member from her former party, Team Wizard. Eating at a canteen, Stunner tells her that by dumb luck, he found the center where she plays after he heard about a powerful female Warrior class player from some others. As the talk turns to Team Wizard, Ash doesn't want to hear about it. Stunner asks her if she heard what happened to Murphy, the team leader. Like her, he also went solo and was "lost".
In flashback, Murphy commands the Team Wizard members in their latest mission. Under heavy fire from an enemy chopper outside the building the team is in, Stunner tells him on the communicator that they're low on ammo and have to go back, but Murphy retorts that resetting the game is not a part of their party's strategy. Murphy then calls out for Ash, who looks distressed and refuses to respond. As she leaves the hospital, the same man who broke her record, Bishop, uses his scope to watch after her. After that, he leaves, walking through dozens of unreturned patients on the hospital porch.
, the once and future king." The computer prompts her to enter her Avalon game ID. After pondering for a while, Ash decides to log in using her game card. After an unusually long delay, Ash gets a message telling her to meet in Ruins C66 at Class A.
The next day, before Ash enters the game, she asks if the GM knows about the Nine Sisters. The GM responds with the name Morgan Le Fay
, one of the nine fairy queens who ruled Avalon, the legendary isle, and brought the dying King Arthur over there. She was also Arthur's protectress, the Lady of the Lake. In response, Ash heard of a story regarding Morgan in Northern Europe. Odin
encountered a shipwreck and drifted to an island, where Morgan saves him. She gives him a golden ring which grants him immortality and eternal youth. However, without Odin realizing, she also sets a Crown of Oblivion upon his head, which makes him forget his homeland and the world outside. Saying this, Ash puts on her own "Crown of Oblivion", the VR helmet.
Entering the game and reaching Ruins C66, Ash meets Jill, who claims to be one of the Nine Sisters. She brings Ash to meet Murphy of the Nine Sisters. However it turns out to be a trap, and the fake "Nine Sisters" plan to steal Ash's equipment data. Ash takes Jill hostage and demands to know what Murphy of Nine Sisters know. He tells her that only the real Nine Sisters know about Special A, and they are the programmers who created this game. Before anyone can do anything further, a chopper appears suddenly outside the ruins, due to a game time-lag, and kills most of the players inside, including Murphy of Nine Sisters. Ash grabs Jill and seeks cover, attempting to fire back at the chopper. It releases its missiles and due to the lag, they teleport right in front of Ash, who screams out "Reset". Forced out of the game, Ash vomits inside the booth from the stress.
Later, while riding the tram home, Ash notices what seemed like the same passengers as before, immobile inside the car. After reaching her station, Ash walks past more immobile people, with only a dog looking at her. Reaching home, her dog, unseen, welcomes her. Ash then prepares a sumptuous meal for her dog. When she finishes preparing the food for her dog, she suddenly realizes that it has mysteriously disappeared. She looks around her home, and even outside, to no avail. As she stands outside helplessly, she hears what seems to be the chopper from the game flying through her district. The next day, Ash goes to a bookstore and buys books regarding Arthurian legend and Avalon. As she leaves, she runs into Stunner again, who invites her to breakfast. While eating, Stunner tells her that there is one common link between parties who try to seek the entrance to Special A: a Bishop class player, who can seemingly make the ghost appear. Not any Bishop, he says, but a level 12 or 13 Archbishop. Before being unreturned, Murphy was also a Bishop class player, and he managed to enter Special A. Ash neither has enough time nor money to switch to Bishop and level up from there, nor join up a party due to her habit of playing solo.
After the branch's closing hours, Ash sits quietly waiting for her time to log in. The receptionist wants to close up, but Ash tells her that she is going to meet a person who can bring her to Special A. The receptionist tells Ash that there is no such thing like that in Avalon. No matter how real it is, Avalon is still a game. If a program cannot be cleared, it is not a game anymore, that's why Special A was kept hidden as a forbidden area. The receptionist reveals that she works for Bishop as a terminal manager. Ash is told that Bishop accesses the game from his own terminal. She is asked by the receptionist to keep away from Bishop, but she refuses, as Murphy is still trapped in Special A. The receptionist, realizing she cannot change Ash's mind, prepares her booth. When Ash logs in, she sees the face of the GM in her helmet, who prefers that she does not enter Special A. Ash asks if the GM is accessing from a terminal somewhere or just part of the system itself. The GM answers that she cannot confirm if he is real or not anyway, so it does not matter.
In the game, Ash walks up to the top of Flak Tower 22, where she rendezvous with Bishop and 3 dummy players created from the game. Ash deduces that Bishop works for the real Nine Sisters, the original designers of the game. Stunner also arrives to help, which meant that Bishop scouted him to look for Ash all along. At Ruins D99, Ash's party runs into a Class A-strength enemy, the Citadel. Bishop, Stunner and the rest of the party distract the giant vehicle with their gunfire, while Ash eventually runs up behind the Citadel and uses her RPG to blow out the back, its weak point. As the party gains tons of experience points, Stunner spots the ghost, who disappears into the wall. He shoots at it as it runs but this does not affect it. He is then shot by an enemy opponent, which Ash kills. At Stunner's side, Ash learns that the ghost can only be killed if it leaves the wall and become corporeal. Stunner also confesses he was the one who called out "Reset" in Team Wizard's last mission, leading to the group's disbandment. After this, his character dies, logging out of the game.
Bishop hands Ash a gun and she goes after the ghost, who plays hide-and-seek with her. Reaching the ghost's last location, she manages to fire at it, which breaks into 2D fragments and converts into a gateway to Special A. Ash steps into the portal, which assimilates her into program codes, then brings her to Special A.
Ash is directed to a poster, which features an Avalon-themed concert, and curiously her dog is pictured on it. That is her destination to which she will find the Unreturned, and she finds a ticket pinned to the poster, which she takes. Ash walks bare-feet outside the room, which turns out to be the corridor of the game branch. She moves cautiously along the corridor and out the door, and is surprised to find herself in broad daylight, under a full color world, unlike the yellow-tinted world she lived in. Walking along the sidewalk, Ash is overwhelmed by the amount of people on the streets. She finds more of the Avalon-themed concert posters along the pavement. A car pulls up, with what seems to be her own dog staring out at her from the window, but Ash does not notice. She takes a train from the subway. Standing inside the train car, Ash catches eyes with some of the passengers, unlike the immobile ones back in her own world. Exiting the train and into the subway, Ash is directed by more concert posters and eventually finds the location of the concert.
While waiting inside the lobby, Ash finds Murphy, who stands in one corner. Both of them stay looking at each other as the guests file into the concert hall. As the orchestra plays in the concert, Ash and Murphy stay out on the courtyard. After a while, Murphy asks why she came here, and if it's because of him. "Isn't that a good reason?" Ash says. Murphy tells Ash that she should know why Wizard broke up. Ash responds that she thought she knew why, that is why she kept quiet about it, and instead let her other team members think it was her who called out "Reset". Murphy angrily asks that if she knew, then why had she come to Class Real to look for him? Ash tells him that Stunner told her that he was lost. Back there, he was just another Unreturned. Ash continues saying that Murphy wanted to go all the way, and the team was in his way of achieving his goal. That is why he used the failure of the party's last mission to disband the team. She asks Murphy if he wanted to abandon them, just to spend the rest of his life as a vegetable on a hospital bed.
Murphy instead smiles, and asks her if he looks like a vegetable right now. After all, he says, this is Class Real. He then rants in anger that reality is nothing but an obsession that takes hold of them. Because of this, he questions why he couldn't make this his own reality. Ash says that even though Murphy believes this, in actuality he is just running away from his problems. Murphy instead asks Ash about her missing silver streak of hair, which the players used it to call her. Upon hearing this, Ash starts to hesitate.
Murphy then asks if Ash has ever been shot, to feel real pain in a real body. Saying this, he slowly takes out his gun. Ash also draws her gun, asking if this is the only way. Murphy says that when one of them dies, and the body does not vanish, the other will know if this place is real or not. Both of them point guns at each other, but Ash shoots first, fatally wounding Murphy. As he collapses, Ash rushes up to him. It is revealed he never intended to shoot her; his gun was unloaded with its bullets loose in the palm of his hand. These drop on the ground as he collapses. In his dying breath, Murphy tells Ash to never let appearances confuse her, and that this is the world where she belongs. He dies and slumps to his side, but his body vanishes in the traditional way as per in the game. Ash, stunned by this, remains there for a while.
Ash's fate is left unknown, as the film ends with the words, "Welcome to Avalon".
shet
Mamoru Oshii
Mamoru Oshii is a Japanese filmmaker, television director, and writer. Famous for his philosophy-oriented storytelling, Oshii has directed a number of popular anime, including Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer, Ghost in the Shell, and Patlabor 2...
. The name of the film originates from the island Avalon
Avalon
Avalon is a legendary island featured in the Arthurian legend. It first appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's 1136 pseudohistorical account Historia Regum Britanniae as the place where King Arthur's sword Excalibur was forged and later where Arthur was...
in the legend of King Arthur
King Arthur
King Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and...
.
Overview
The film is set in a bleak future, where the population is hooked on an immersive illegal virtual realityVirtual reality
Virtual reality , also known as virtuality, is a term that applies to computer-simulated environments that can simulate physical presence in places in the real world, as well as in imaginary worlds...
video game called Avalon. Despite its popularity the game can be deadly, leaving players' bodies catatonic in the real world. One player of the game, Ash (played by Polish actress Małgorzata Foremniak), hears of a secret level
Level (computer and video games)
A level, map, area, or world in a video game is the total space available to the player during the course of completing a discrete objective...
hidden within Avalon. The film follows her quest to find the level.
The film's colour palette is mainly sepia tones, helping to blur the line between the real world and that within the game itself.
The film is typically Mamoru Oshii styled in its pacing and editing. It is relatively slow paced, reinforcing the mundane nature of the world Ash lives in and highlighting the excitement of playing the game. The film features a basset hound
Basset Hound
The Basset Hound is a short-legged breed of dog of the hound family. They are scent hounds, bred to hunt rabbits and hare by scent. Their sense of smell for tracking is second only to that of the Bloodhound....
, a breed of dog common in Oshii's films, since he has one, named Gabriel.
The film's score
Film score
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...
is by regular Oshii collaborator, Kenji Kawai
Kenji Kawai
, born April 23, 1957 in Shinagawa, Tokyo, is a Japanese music composer, for motion pictures, anime movies, video games and televised programs. He has contributed to the musical scores for numerous films from Japan and other countries in Asia, working in film genres as diverse as anime, horror,...
.
Reception
Even though the film was produced and directed by a Japanese crew, it is a half European-half Asian work since Avalon was co-produced by a Polish film company, starred Polish actors and was filmed mostly in Wrocław, PolandPoland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
with Polish dialogue. A Japanese dub was created however for the films original Japanese release and is also available on the Japanese region 2 DVD.
"Shooting it in Japan was impossible," Oshii advised interviewer Andrez Bergen in a major article that appeared in Japan's Daily Yomiuri newspaper in 2004. "I didn't think of using a Japanese cast. I considered shooting in the UK or Ireland, but the towns and scenery in Poland matched my image for the movie."
In Europe, Avalon was screened out of competition at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival
2001 Cannes Film Festival
The 2001 Cannes Film Festival started on May 14 and ran until May 25. The Palme d'Or went to the Italian film The Son's Room by Nanni Moretti.-Jury:* Liv Ullmann, President * Mimmo Calopresti * Charlotte Gainsbourg...
and won awards at other European festivals: in Spain, it was awarded "Best Cinematography" at the Catalonian International Film Festival
Festival de Cine de Sitges
The Sitges Film Festival is a Spanish film festival that is one of the most recognizable ones held in Europe, considered the world's foremost international festival specializing in fantasy and horror movies...
(2001), and in the United Kingdom, it won the "Best Film" award at Sci-Fi-London
Sci-Fi-London
SCI-FI-LONDON , is a UK based film festival, dedicated to the science fiction and fantasy genres, which began in 2002.-About the Festival:...
(2002).
However, the film received only limited release in North America (with most of its fanbase created via the circulation of bootleg
Copyright infringement
Copyright infringement is the unauthorized or prohibited use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works.- "Piracy" :...
DVDs imported from Asia) until Miramax released it on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
in late 2003. The North American version has added narration to make it easier for the audience to understand the plot; although the option to view the film without the English overdubbing is provided, the subtitles still display the added dialogue. The British region-free DVD has literal English subtitles which explain the King Arthur connection better and does not display added dialogue.
Such viewer help was not used in European countries, like France, where local editions only feature optional subtitles about the Polish sung opera piece, in the Polish spoken original version only.
The game
In an unspecified era there is a forbidden online virtual realityVirtual reality
Virtual reality , also known as virtuality, is a term that applies to computer-simulated environments that can simulate physical presence in places in the real world, as well as in imaginary worlds...
video game. Players fight with modern, medieval and fantasy weapons in a world marked by war. In-game earned credits can be exchanged in real life for currency. Sometimes, usually with higher level players, a player's spirit may stay inside the game, and the body stays vegetating in hospitals in the real world.
Oshii describes his game as a "military
Military
A military is an organization authorized by its greater society to use lethal force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or perceived threats. The military may have additional functions of use to its greater society, such as advancing a political agenda e.g...
RPG" (ミリタリーロールプレー, miritarīrōrupurē). However, it mixes elements of Role Playing Game
Role-playing game
A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development...
(such as character classes and experience points) and First Person Shooter (FPS) (utilizing real firearms such as semi-auto pistols (Walther PPK
Walther PPK
The Walther PP series pistols are blowback-operated semi-automatic pistols.They feature an exposed hammer, a double-action trigger mechanism, a single-column magazine, and a fixed barrel which also acts as the guide rod for the recoil spring...
and Mauser C96
Mauser C96
The Mauser C96 is a semi-automatic pistol that was originally produced by German arms manufacturer Mauser from 1896 to 1937...
), sniper rifle (Dragunov SVD) and rocket launcher (RPG-7
RPG-7
The RPG-7 is a widely-produced, portable, unguided, shoulder-launched, anti-tank rocket-propelled grenade launcher. Originally the RPG-7 and its predecessor, the RPG-2, were designed by the Soviet Union, and now manufactured by the Bazalt company...
)); and it also borrows from the Wizardry
Wizardry
Wizardry is a series of computer role-playing games, developed by Sir-Tech, which were highly influential in the development of modern console and computer role playing games. The original Wizardry was a significant influence to early console RPGs, such as Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy. ...
series Oshii played extensively during three years he was unemployed in the 1980s.
With these two genres, it shares the common principle of player hierarchy. In Avalon, players are ranked after three levels, Class C, Class B, Class A. Elite Class A players are rumored to be able to play a hidden extra mode featuring different rules and named Class SA (for "Special A").
To complete levels within the game, players must defeat powerful end-of-level bosses similar to those found in classic video games.
Players wear headsets which immerse their senses in the game world. The design of the headset and chair installation are influenced by the cult French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
SF
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
short film, La jetée
La Jetée
La jetée is a 1962 French science fiction film by Chris Marker. It is also known in English as The Jetty or The Pier. Constructed almost entirely from still photos, it tells the story of a post-nuclear war experiment in time travel. The film runs for 28 minutes and is in black and white...
.
As an interesting first, this movie features the appearance of lag
Lag
Lag is a common word meaning to fail to keep up or to fall behind. In real-time applications, the term is used when the application fails to respond in a timely fashion to inputs...
, a gameplay error due to network transfer slowdown often encountered in online games. Oshii displays lag as an ailment that causes physical convulsions in the player during these slowdowns.
The scene with Ash in the tramway is a live action recreation of a similar scene appearing in the 1999 anime feature film Jin-Roh
Jin-Roh
is a 1999 Japanese animated feature film directed by Hiroyuki Okiura. The film is the third adaptation of Mamoru Oshii's Kerberos saga manga, Ken-Roh Densetsu, after The Red Spectacles released in 1987 and StrayDog: Kerberos Panzer Cops released in 1991 in Japanese theaters.The film takes place in...
, which Oshii wrote but did not direct. This scene is based on Oshii's own teenage experience, when he used to spend entire days spinning in loop in the Yamanote Line
Yamanote Line
The is commuter rail loop line in Tokyo, Japan, operated by East Japan Railway Company . It is one of Tokyo's busiest and most important lines, connecting most of Tokyo's major stations and urban centres, including the Yūrakuchō/Ginza area, Shibuya, Shinjuku, and Ikebukuro, with all but two of its...
.
Opening (Prologue)
In the near future young people deal with their disillusionment by seeking out illusions of their own - in an illegal virtual-reality war game. Its simulated thrills and deaths are compulsive and addictive. Some players, working in teams called "parties", even earn their living from the game. The game has its dangers. Sometimes it can leave a player brain-dead, needing constant medical care. Such victims are called "Unreturned". The game is named after the legendary island where the souls of departed heroes come to rest: Avalon.A display shows a tactical map, with symbols indicating various units and their statistics. The map fades to a view of real tanks
ZSU-23-4
The ZSU-23-4 "Shilka" is a lightly armored, self-propelled, radar guided anti-aircraft weapon system . ZSU stands for Zenitnaya Samokhodnaya Ustanovka , meaning "anti-aircraft self-propelled mount". The "23" signifies the bore diameter in millimeters. The "4" signifies the number of gun barrels. It...
plowing through a grassy plain, firing at an unseen enemy. Aerial units destroy the tanks, with the blast freezing in mid-air, showing that they are actually rendered 2D graphics. A woman in combat armor teleports into the area, which becomes a cityscape. She watches crowds running away from the numerous tanks that have appeared. other soldiers, similar to the woman, fire uselessly at the tanks.
The tanks kill several citizens, but as they die, they unfold into 2D shapes and explode. The woman sneaks up on the tank and climbs on. She grabs the machine gun and kills some soldiers. She then kills a soldier trying to escape, stating that he's not ready for Class A. She's playing a virtual-reality game, and the "soldiers" she killed earlier were also players.
A chopper bombs and kills the populace, then fades away in the sky. A short while later, a number of players run across the plain and the woman teleports in. The chopper appears and the players shoot at it, with no effect. The chopper then kills several players. Meanwhile, the woman runs to an abandoned building and trains her sniper scope on the chopper. She fires into the cabin, causing it to swing out of control. The woman climbs uses a tank mounted machine gun to shoot at the chopper until it explodes. The explosion kills several players, but then the game stops and declares the mission is complete. Satisfied, the woman leaves. Unknown to her, a man in a cloak watches her through his scope and smiles.
Log Off
The woman logs off and wakes up in her game booth. The Game Master (GM) appears onscreen and congratulates the woman, Ash, on her latest mission. After Ash cashes in her winnings for ammo and currency, the GM tells her that playing solo is more dangerous on the next level, and he wants her to consider joining a party. Ash silently leaves the booth. Walking outside, Ash witnesses her own performance on the battle screen in the lobby. While waiting for her money from the receptionist, Ash notices two statues above the counter, one of which is headless. Leaving the game center, Ash walks to the tram station, where she passes several immobile people, except for a dog looking back at her. While riding the tram, Ash notices the passengers are all frozen in place. Ash gets home and is welcomed by her basset hound.The next day, Ash watches as a player on the lobby battle screen, the same man who spied on her the day before, breaks her record time on the Class A mission. Annoyed at being surpassed, Ash logs in to find the player's stats, but he has no name and his game access point is unknown. Entering her booth, Ash is told by the GM that her turn is not yet ready. Ash cancels her game and requests more information about the player "Bishop" from the GM. The GM wonders why Ash is interested in him, as she had never contacted with another player. Ash reveals that she feels she is being challenged by him.
Later, as Ash leaves the Avalon center, she runs into Stunner, a Thief class player and a member from her former party, Team Wizard. Eating at a canteen, Stunner tells her that by dumb luck, he found the center where she plays after he heard about a powerful female Warrior class player from some others. As the talk turns to Team Wizard, Ash doesn't want to hear about it. Stunner asks her if she heard what happened to Murphy, the team leader. Like her, he also went solo and was "lost".
Hospital
Ash goes to visit Murphy at the hospital. In voiceover, Stunner informs her on a hidden character in Class A, a neutral character that appears as a silent young girl with sad eyes. Some of the players think that she's a bug in the program, and name her the "ghost". As Ash walks through the corridor, a girl with the same characteristics as described by Stunner looks at Ash, but she does not notice. Stunner continues by telling her that all the players who went after the "ghost" never came back and turned into "Unreturned". There is a rumored area in the game called "Special A", where players cannot reset to escape the game, however it does give out a ton of experience points when completed. Players believe that the ghost is the only gateway into Special A, so they go after her, like Murphy did. Ash stands over Murphy's bed in the ward, where he has become a comatose vegetable.In flashback, Murphy commands the Team Wizard members in their latest mission. Under heavy fire from an enemy chopper outside the building the team is in, Stunner tells him on the communicator that they're low on ammo and have to go back, but Murphy retorts that resetting the game is not a part of their party's strategy. Murphy then calls out for Ash, who looks distressed and refuses to respond. As she leaves the hospital, the same man who broke her record, Bishop, uses his scope to watch after her. After that, he leaves, walking through dozens of unreturned patients on the hospital porch.
Nine Sisters
At home, Ash searches for words regarding the game Avalon, Unreturned, and the ghost. The computer instead closes up her searches, and Ash resets her computer, which leaves out an important keyword, "Nine Sisters". She accesses it to reveal a drawing of the Nine Sisters, with the words, "Here lies ArthurKing Arthur
King Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and...
, the once and future king." The computer prompts her to enter her Avalon game ID. After pondering for a while, Ash decides to log in using her game card. After an unusually long delay, Ash gets a message telling her to meet in Ruins C66 at Class A.
The next day, before Ash enters the game, she asks if the GM knows about the Nine Sisters. The GM responds with the name Morgan Le Fay
Morgan le Fay
Morgan le Fay , alternatively known as Morgane, Morgaine, Morgana and other variants, is a powerful sorceress in the Arthurian legend. Early works featuring Morgan do not elaborate her character beyond her role as a fay or magician...
, one of the nine fairy queens who ruled Avalon, the legendary isle, and brought the dying King Arthur over there. She was also Arthur's protectress, the Lady of the Lake. In response, Ash heard of a story regarding Morgan in Northern Europe. Odin
Odin
Odin is a major god in Norse mythology and the ruler of Asgard. Homologous with the Anglo-Saxon "Wōden" and the Old High German "Wotan", the name is descended from Proto-Germanic "*Wodanaz" or "*Wōđanaz"....
encountered a shipwreck and drifted to an island, where Morgan saves him. She gives him a golden ring which grants him immortality and eternal youth. However, without Odin realizing, she also sets a Crown of Oblivion upon his head, which makes him forget his homeland and the world outside. Saying this, Ash puts on her own "Crown of Oblivion", the VR helmet.
Entering the game and reaching Ruins C66, Ash meets Jill, who claims to be one of the Nine Sisters. She brings Ash to meet Murphy of the Nine Sisters. However it turns out to be a trap, and the fake "Nine Sisters" plan to steal Ash's equipment data. Ash takes Jill hostage and demands to know what Murphy of Nine Sisters know. He tells her that only the real Nine Sisters know about Special A, and they are the programmers who created this game. Before anyone can do anything further, a chopper appears suddenly outside the ruins, due to a game time-lag, and kills most of the players inside, including Murphy of Nine Sisters. Ash grabs Jill and seeks cover, attempting to fire back at the chopper. It releases its missiles and due to the lag, they teleport right in front of Ash, who screams out "Reset". Forced out of the game, Ash vomits inside the booth from the stress.
Later, while riding the tram home, Ash notices what seemed like the same passengers as before, immobile inside the car. After reaching her station, Ash walks past more immobile people, with only a dog looking at her. Reaching home, her dog, unseen, welcomes her. Ash then prepares a sumptuous meal for her dog. When she finishes preparing the food for her dog, she suddenly realizes that it has mysteriously disappeared. She looks around her home, and even outside, to no avail. As she stands outside helplessly, she hears what seems to be the chopper from the game flying through her district. The next day, Ash goes to a bookstore and buys books regarding Arthurian legend and Avalon. As she leaves, she runs into Stunner again, who invites her to breakfast. While eating, Stunner tells her that there is one common link between parties who try to seek the entrance to Special A: a Bishop class player, who can seemingly make the ghost appear. Not any Bishop, he says, but a level 12 or 13 Archbishop. Before being unreturned, Murphy was also a Bishop class player, and he managed to enter Special A. Ash neither has enough time nor money to switch to Bishop and level up from there, nor join up a party due to her habit of playing solo.
Ruins D99
Returning home, Ash gets a knock on the door, where she finds that it is Bishop, the man who broke her record, at her door. She asks how he managed to find her, and he answers that it is him she needs. Bishop walks around in her home, commenting on the food the dog eats, and the items she uses, right down to the books she bought. He flips open one of the books to reveal that all the pages inside are empty. Bishop tells Ash about the rumors spreading of Team Wizard's demise, which seems to be Ash's doing due to her calling "Reset" back in the party's final mission. Ash requests to form a party with Bishop, who tells her to meet at Flak Tower 22 in the game.After the branch's closing hours, Ash sits quietly waiting for her time to log in. The receptionist wants to close up, but Ash tells her that she is going to meet a person who can bring her to Special A. The receptionist tells Ash that there is no such thing like that in Avalon. No matter how real it is, Avalon is still a game. If a program cannot be cleared, it is not a game anymore, that's why Special A was kept hidden as a forbidden area. The receptionist reveals that she works for Bishop as a terminal manager. Ash is told that Bishop accesses the game from his own terminal. She is asked by the receptionist to keep away from Bishop, but she refuses, as Murphy is still trapped in Special A. The receptionist, realizing she cannot change Ash's mind, prepares her booth. When Ash logs in, she sees the face of the GM in her helmet, who prefers that she does not enter Special A. Ash asks if the GM is accessing from a terminal somewhere or just part of the system itself. The GM answers that she cannot confirm if he is real or not anyway, so it does not matter.
In the game, Ash walks up to the top of Flak Tower 22, where she rendezvous with Bishop and 3 dummy players created from the game. Ash deduces that Bishop works for the real Nine Sisters, the original designers of the game. Stunner also arrives to help, which meant that Bishop scouted him to look for Ash all along. At Ruins D99, Ash's party runs into a Class A-strength enemy, the Citadel. Bishop, Stunner and the rest of the party distract the giant vehicle with their gunfire, while Ash eventually runs up behind the Citadel and uses her RPG to blow out the back, its weak point. As the party gains tons of experience points, Stunner spots the ghost, who disappears into the wall. He shoots at it as it runs but this does not affect it. He is then shot by an enemy opponent, which Ash kills. At Stunner's side, Ash learns that the ghost can only be killed if it leaves the wall and become corporeal. Stunner also confesses he was the one who called out "Reset" in Team Wizard's last mission, leading to the group's disbandment. After this, his character dies, logging out of the game.
Bishop hands Ash a gun and she goes after the ghost, who plays hide-and-seek with her. Reaching the ghost's last location, she manages to fire at it, which breaks into 2D fragments and converts into a gateway to Special A. Ash steps into the portal, which assimilates her into program codes, then brings her to Special A.
Special A (Class Real)
Ash wakes up in the game terminal, which seems to be built in her own home, except there is no furniture. Her silver streak of hair is missing, instead having only short black hair. Only her computer is still around, with the words "Welcome to Class Real" flickering on the screen. Curious, Ash walks to the window and opens it, to find it bricked up. She finds a box containing a gun and one magazine of ammo. She also finds an evening gown within. Bishop appears on the computer screen. Ash asks him if this is Special A, and Bishop tells her that the designers call it "Class Real". Building this hidden area has taken them huge amounts of sophisticated data. In many ways, it is still experimental. He tells her that there is only one objective to complete in Class Real: finish off the Unreturned staying here. Her levels and equipment are returned to default, which leaves her with the only gun she has. The only way to exit the game is completion. However, she must not hurt any of the neutral characters who operate under free will in this area, otherwise the game is over. Ash asks Bishop why he brought her here, and he responds that surely she knows the answer within her.Ash is directed to a poster, which features an Avalon-themed concert, and curiously her dog is pictured on it. That is her destination to which she will find the Unreturned, and she finds a ticket pinned to the poster, which she takes. Ash walks bare-feet outside the room, which turns out to be the corridor of the game branch. She moves cautiously along the corridor and out the door, and is surprised to find herself in broad daylight, under a full color world, unlike the yellow-tinted world she lived in. Walking along the sidewalk, Ash is overwhelmed by the amount of people on the streets. She finds more of the Avalon-themed concert posters along the pavement. A car pulls up, with what seems to be her own dog staring out at her from the window, but Ash does not notice. She takes a train from the subway. Standing inside the train car, Ash catches eyes with some of the passengers, unlike the immobile ones back in her own world. Exiting the train and into the subway, Ash is directed by more concert posters and eventually finds the location of the concert.
While waiting inside the lobby, Ash finds Murphy, who stands in one corner. Both of them stay looking at each other as the guests file into the concert hall. As the orchestra plays in the concert, Ash and Murphy stay out on the courtyard. After a while, Murphy asks why she came here, and if it's because of him. "Isn't that a good reason?" Ash says. Murphy tells Ash that she should know why Wizard broke up. Ash responds that she thought she knew why, that is why she kept quiet about it, and instead let her other team members think it was her who called out "Reset". Murphy angrily asks that if she knew, then why had she come to Class Real to look for him? Ash tells him that Stunner told her that he was lost. Back there, he was just another Unreturned. Ash continues saying that Murphy wanted to go all the way, and the team was in his way of achieving his goal. That is why he used the failure of the party's last mission to disband the team. She asks Murphy if he wanted to abandon them, just to spend the rest of his life as a vegetable on a hospital bed.
Murphy instead smiles, and asks her if he looks like a vegetable right now. After all, he says, this is Class Real. He then rants in anger that reality is nothing but an obsession that takes hold of them. Because of this, he questions why he couldn't make this his own reality. Ash says that even though Murphy believes this, in actuality he is just running away from his problems. Murphy instead asks Ash about her missing silver streak of hair, which the players used it to call her. Upon hearing this, Ash starts to hesitate.
Murphy then asks if Ash has ever been shot, to feel real pain in a real body. Saying this, he slowly takes out his gun. Ash also draws her gun, asking if this is the only way. Murphy says that when one of them dies, and the body does not vanish, the other will know if this place is real or not. Both of them point guns at each other, but Ash shoots first, fatally wounding Murphy. As he collapses, Ash rushes up to him. It is revealed he never intended to shoot her; his gun was unloaded with its bullets loose in the palm of his hand. These drop on the ground as he collapses. In his dying breath, Murphy tells Ash to never let appearances confuse her, and that this is the world where she belongs. He dies and slumps to his side, but his body vanishes in the traditional way as per in the game. Ash, stunned by this, remains there for a while.
Log In (Epilogue)
Ash goes to the concert hall, where the performance has just ended and the audience's applause is still audible. However, when she enters the hall, she finds it empty. Empty, apart from the ghost that stands on the stage. Ash walks silently down the concert hall to the front of the stage, where she points her gun at the ghost. A sudden flash shows the two statues that Ash saw above the receptionist's counter, however this time the headless statue now has a complete head. Expressionless, the ghost watches Ash for a few moments, then gives an eerie smile.Ash's fate is left unknown, as the film ends with the words, "Welcome to Avalon".
Cast
- Małgorzata Foremniak - Ash
- Władysław Kowalski - Game Master
- Jerzy Gudejko - Murphy
- Dariusz Biskupski - Bishop
- Bartek Świderski - Stunner
- Katarzyna Bargielowska - Receptionist
- Alicja Sapryk - Jill
- Michał Breitenwald - Murphy of Nine Sisters
- Zuzanna Kasz - Ghost
- Jarosław Budnik - Cooper (voiceover)
- Andrzej Dębski - Cusinart (voiceover)
- Beszamel - Ash's Dog
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External links
- Avalon at Rotten TomatoesRotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
- Nine Sisters: Avalon, a UK perspective
- Official Polish website (archived)