TIFF results

[Scorsese]

pls stop e-mailing me
u've got the wrong person


----- Original Message -----
From: "Aaron Gerow" <gerow at ynu.ac.jp>
To: "KineJapan" <KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Sent: Thursday, November 09, 2000 9:29 AM
Subject: Re: TIFF results


> >Just out of curiosity, would you, personally, use the same phrase to
> >describe Evangelion?!?
>
> Actually, I found Evangelion more palatable, perhaps because it was in
> shorter segments with more entertainment value, but also because what he
> was doing there was easier to do in anime.  Try some of the same things
> in live action, as he was doing in Ritual, and you end up with a mess.
>
> >Also, what's Oshii's Avalon about exactly? Is it as theatrical as
something
> >like Talking Head? Does it integrate animation with live action?
>
> Eija desfribed some of it, but to add a few things: The story, set in the
> near future, is about an illegal computer role playing game called Avalon
> which has some players who are so good they make a living at it.  While
> most players participate in teams, some, like the heroine Ash, a woman
> who used to be a member of the legendary Wizard team, works alone. While
> the game can be reset, some who engage in dangerous activities can end up
> "unreturned"--basically brain-dead in real life. After learning about a
> player "Bishop" who plays very much like her, she also finds out that one
> of her Wizard teammates has gone unreturned.  In order to find out about
> him, and to clear up the past (a perpetual Oshii issue), she challenges a
> special place inside Avalon where you get double the experience points
> but can't "reset".
>
> The film was shot in Poland with Polish actors and all the dialogue is in
> Polish.  Oshii shot it there cause he could use the Polish Army cheaply,
> but also because he likes Polish cinema and the sound of Polish.  The
> cinematographer is Polish and the bleak, mostly black and white
> photography of a declining Warsaw is reminiscent of 1950s Polish film.
> Oshii's statement about originally wanting to set some of the story in
> the sewers does link with Jin-Roh, but it also connects with Wajda's
> Kanal.  (And one wants to relate "Ash" to Ashes and Diamonds, though she
> does not wear Zybulsky sun glasses.)
>
> THe presentation is not theatrical at all, though certain restricted
> spaces and a musical performance figure importantly.
>
> Some of Oshii's "anti-otaku" critique is evident in the film.  He said he
> wanted an Ash like Kusanagi in Ghost in the Shell, but just as she is
> more adult than the manga, Ash is played by a real-life mother in her
> late thirties (not your cutsie idol).  The entire ending, playing with
> the boundaries between game and reality, as well as the power-relations
> involved in that and the desire for reality/unreality, are quite
> interesting, but as with earlier Oshii work, there's always the remaining
> ambivalence typical of the anime director who hates anime.  (He said
> before the film this is the kind of film he wants to make: i.e., not
> anime and not live-action, but a mixture of both worlds).
>
> Aaron Gerow
> Yokohama National University
> KineJapan list owner
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