A Confusion of Virtual Reality and Reality in the VR Video Game-based Film 《Avalon》: With a Focus on the Notions of Self, Make-believe, and Legend

Abstract

As virtual reality technology continues to develop and become known to the public, SF films featuring VR video games have often been produced. Among them, a film 《Avalon》(2001) produced by Mamoru Oshii of Japan, famous for directing the animation 《Ghost in the Shell》(1995) is considered an art film masterpiece by SF enthusiasts, though it has failed in popular box office. Since film audiences enter the virtual world from the real world through the screen, the film 《Avalon》 which is related to VR metaverse video games, can be understood as a double embodiment of the virtual. This could be in line with the concept of ‘make-believe’ in the Kendall L. Walton's mimesis theory. This is because the self of a human being is happily deceived by various mechanical devices that implement VR and enjoys the virtual world by being confused between the virtual and the real. In this paper, the film 《Avalon》 is examined from the perspective of ‘the virtual and the real’. The film is interpreted with the conceptual tools such as legends, the virtual world, the self, ‘make-believe’ and mythical cultural archetypes. Thus, it can be seen that director Mamoru Oshii produced the religious SF film 《Avalon》 under the background of mind-body dualism and the self experiencing various levels of reality, and wanted to portray the virtual reality space of video games which does not exist in reality. On the battlefield of the video game, the character of the game player has to be killed and revived countless times. The confusion between virtual and reality is the core notion of the movie. The lives of the 21st century people seem to be somewhere in the middle of fantasy, heroism, samsara and video games, and cyberculture where second selves are created. It seems that 《Avalon》 wants to portray our reality in the fable of a VR video game movie.