Avalon Hill

I think Netflix suggested Avalon (2001) - don't really remember, It's been on my queue for a while. Now that Netflix discs are going away, I figured I should start watching the oddities that would be hard to find elsewhere. This dystopian Japanese/Polish gaming movie fits that pretty well.

It start with a battle scene, with a lone player standing out - our hero, Ash, played by Malgorzata Foremniak. Characters disintegrate when shot, indicating this is a VR game. When Foremniak wins the level, she comes to in a grimy room in a grimy underground VR gaming gallery. She is warned that the next level is hard, she should get a team to go with her. But she works alone.

Her daily life is pretty grim, with nothing to eat but slop - except she has an old basset dog. The dog gets home-cooked meals of real meat and vegetables. Underground VR gaming pays pretty well if you are good enough. She runs into an old team-mate, Bartek Swidereski - a creep who mainly wants to scrounge a meal from her. It seems the reason that her team broke up is because someone pulled the reset in a game, causing big lose of face. The team leader, Murphy, went on a lot of solo missions, and in the end, got stuck in the game. Foremniak goes to visit his comatose body in a hospital ward for those who don't come back from the game.

As you might expect, reality and virtual reality begin to blur. Foremniak becomes obsessed with a hidden game level, where she thinks she can find Murphy and maybe bring him back. But will she rescue him or he rescue her?

This movie has an interesting look - very yellow in the game, and slightly yellow, grimy and dystopian out of it. It reminded me a bit of Dark Portals, which had a very wild cinematography. This isn't at all as radical, but had a similar go-for-broke style. The story was not quite as metaphysical as it could have been, which is probably for the best. It did have an awesome orchestral score with choir and soprano, which even played a minor role in the movie. 

Not that great, actually, but definitely unique. Glad we saw it.