EURO-AICN - DUAL; VIGILANTE CHICKS & LETHAL LESBIANS; ENRON; AVALON, DIE ANOTHER DAY,

Mamoru Oshii‚s Avalon is getting released on march 27Th. Oshii was in Paris for promotion last week, here‚s some words from him.

I‚ve listened to the splendid Avalon‚s soundtrack before this meeting. I‚ve noticed than the opening track is called Log off, and the last Log in. I guess you wanted to blur the point between reality and game even there..

I won‚t say that all the film is based on sense of lie, at least because after seeing it the audience will go back to their own reality. But I intended to ask about what is reality

Avalon opens on a text telling than in a future world, a video game became the only reality of people, the last place where they can feel emotions. Isn‚t it the perfect Otaku‚s world ?

For me that would be the best of worlds (Laughs). In Japan, there‚s people earning their lives with Casino or Pachinko. I long asked myself, when I was hooked on videogame, why I can‚t do like‚em, make my living with what I was addicted to.

In Avalon, this videogame is illegal. The goal of this game seems to win his own freedom. Is Freedom something dangerous ?

In that context yes. Definitely. Playing videogame creates nothing, it‚s in a way useless. In some ways, this, as races or Pachinko, is quite immoral : it lets make money from a totally abstract thing. I always asked myself why men are attracted to game, something some refer to as vice. Cinema is quite the same : watching a film is useless. There was a time in Japan where kids interested in movies where supposed to end as punks or gangsters. In the film, if freedom is dangerous it‚s because it allows to get rid of the way others look at you.

I‚m maybe interpretating that, but the name of you main character, Ash is the same as one of the Pokemon‚s coach. Does the world need spirituals guides ?

It‚s not on purpose. That said, as a dog always need a master, who happened to be a human, I wonder why if in case of humanity, there was a master who could be God. Even if I don‚t have any particular religious belief, I‚m looking for an answer to this question, understanding what guides our life. But it‚s maybe more simple than that : for kids it‚s parents, maybe for me, theses days, it‚s my wife who‚s guiding me

Avalon is very spectacular but also use SFX in very discreet way. Was the real technical challenge this invisibilization of those effects?

To me, SFX are made to erase any hint of spectacularism. Americans use it in totally opposite way. Cinema should remain something very simple : reality is overwhelmed by informations of all kinds. The role of a filmmaker is to simplify at its maximum his purpose ; by substracting informations. Nowadays cinema is made of too much informations. Why can‚t it be done like expressionists or symbolists painters practice their art by using just what they wanted to show on their paintings ?

Quite all the films you wrote or directed are about an identity quest which can only be accomplished in extreme loneliness. Do you feel isolated in the very particular context that is Japanese production and distribution ?

I don‚t know. But I obviously am part of a minority. We talked earlier about freedom, that can‚t be separate from loneliness. I often feel than outside my private life, at work, even surrounded by my crew, I‚m very alone. But that doesn‚t bother me.

Avalon is shot on polish language, but the place of action is never told. Adding that you previously refered in films to European mythologies, what‚s your definition of borders, frontiers ?

Borders is a concept definitely drawn to conflict. For that film, I worked the graphic notion of shape. Leonardo Da Vinci has stated an interesting problem : when you‚re drawing a woman, is her shape a part of herself of orn what surrounds her ? Is it intern or extern ? I have the same reflexion about borders. With the digital special effects, I tried to erase the shape of characters to create a light who come their inside. It‚s often thought than words help to define things, I think it attenuates‚em. If I love cinema it‚s also because it allows that opposite purpose.

You worked in videogame, anime and now live film. Today videogame is bringing new way of storytelling. What do you think of movies inspired by videogames ?

Difference bewteen movies and videogame is the same as between litterature and movies. In Japan, as soon as an anime serie is out, it‚s always asked when the game is gonna be released.. I although think that the goals of videogame and movies got nothing in common. There‚s absolutely non interest in confronting them on the same ground.

Richard Krzemien weekly comic