Avalon is a 2001 movie directed by Mamoru Oshii. Are you familiar with Ghost in the Shell? He directed those films too, and i think that tells most of the story. In the not-so-far future there’s a new, addictive computer game named after the legendary island, where the souls of departed heroes rest: Avalon. The game is most likely what massively multi-player shooters will become as soon as complete neural connections will be possible. That technique makes Avalon extremely dangerous: there are some people who don’t awake from the game and become brain-dead, needing constant medical care. The main heroine, Ash is a professional player and was the member of the legendary “invulnerable” team Wizard, that after all proved to be not so invulnerable. In a pinch one of the members called reset (escaped from the game), and that led to the disbanding of the party. Ash only misses one of them: Murphy, their leader. From the past thief of Wizard she learns of a secret level (Special-A), where one can only get in by catching the Ghost (of a little girl) and from where there’s no reset if you fail. And there’s a possibility that Murphy’s in there too…

The graphics of the movie are really unique. From the beginning it’s just yellow tones (i wanted to write sepia tones, but that’s different a bit), both in the game and reality – sometimes i wasn’t sure what was computer graphics and what was reality… and i’ve got the feeling that Ash didn’t know it either after a while. Later on, at a very important turning point the view changes: it gets full colour, further blurring the borders between the game and reality.

Avalon a bit reminds me of the Matrix–at the beginning credits there’s a pun: the Matrix-ish running letters, in Avalon colours… I think the only joke in the whole movie. But there are more similarities, in deeper levels: how difficult it is to tell away a game (or a virtual world) from reality, when it feels and looks just as real, the great question of what is reality then, and who controls it… and at all, does it matter? Still it’s not a spin-off off Matrix, i think. It’s totally different, the unique play with colours and the twisting-blurring border between what’s real and what’s not and the Polish accent of the actors make it a great movie to watch, though it leaves you staring at the blank screen shocked, thinking all those scary “what ifs”.