I was finally able to see AVALON, after a recommendation from an especially insightful friend, and I was glad that I did - I'm not usually a big sci-fi fan, but I found AVALON to be very imaginatively made, and full of food for thought. The overall story (well-summarized in other reviews here) is fairly lean, which for me wasn't a problem - the open symbolism of the film invites plenty of meditation upon themes of illusion, honor, faith and addiction, and how those themes surface in ways beyond the obvious in the everyday world we live in. Not necessarily original ideas, but they are well-handled here; the lonesomeness and technological obsessiveness of the characters is definitely cautionary, and definitely underscores the sweetness and value of simple, un-technological human contact.
I did find that AVALON, in its' structure, pleasantly reminded me of several other Japanese films I've liked in the recent past - like CURE, after life, SUICIDE CLUB and the pulp cinema of Seijun Suzuki (and the mind-bending fiction of Haruki Murakami), the rather open ending (not everything wraps up neatly) challenges an audience - in the most generous of ways - to draw conclusions of their own, rather than neatly serving up the directors' own opinions, and in this the meditative pacing (which also recalls some Russian film) is absolutely approriate. And like some of those other films, I'd suspect that it seems stronger with a second viewing.
All-in-all, highly inventive and thoughtful, and more complex than other reviewers have credited it for being.
I did find that AVALON, in its' structure, pleasantly reminded me of several other Japanese films I've liked in the recent past - like CURE, after life, SUICIDE CLUB and the pulp cinema of Seijun Suzuki (and the mind-bending fiction of Haruki Murakami), the rather open ending (not everything wraps up neatly) challenges an audience - in the most generous of ways - to draw conclusions of their own, rather than neatly serving up the directors' own opinions, and in this the meditative pacing (which also recalls some Russian film) is absolutely approriate. And like some of those other films, I'd suspect that it seems stronger with a second viewing.
All-in-all, highly inventive and thoughtful, and more complex than other reviewers have credited it for being.