In a bleak and dreary Poland of the near future young people get their kicks by playing a virtual reality war game called Avalon. Despite its paradisiacal namesake, Avalon is a plain and unglamorous war game, full of shell-torn buildings, and deserted factories. Ironically, the dismal setting of the game differs little from the real world. The game lacks color with only a murky sepia wash to distinguish it from the grayish hues of reality. The players, under constant bombardment by helicopters and tanks, slog through this world with the same lead footed pace of real soldiers. Although they are given points for dexterity and other mental and physical attributes, actions are devoid of graceful Matrix-kicks or hurling balls of energy. The only interesting visual effect is reserved for when players die, breaking up into sheets of light before disappearing completely.

This is war at its deadly dullest. And though the game is grim, the prospect of reaching the highest level of the game, Avalon itself, and acquiring some kind of enlightenment or freedom from their own desolate reality keeps players going.

When she isn't 'logged on' and building a reputation as a top player, the stoic Ash (polish actor Malgorzata Foremniak) leads a near solitary existence with her dog in a lonely apartment. Ash was once a member of Wizard, one of Avalon's toughest war parties. However, the party disbanded after losing one of its members, Murphy (Jerzy Gudejko) to 'class real,' or, more colloquially, a coma. Unfettered by the tragedy, Ash remains transfixed on her goal to reach Avalon. With the help of Stunner (Bartek Swiderski), a shifty-eyed ex-member of Wizard, and a mysterious expert named Bishop, Ash journeys deeper into the game and the mystery of Avalon.

"Ghost in the Shell," an animated masterpiece about a cyber-soldier whose hunt for an elusive hacker becomes a search for identity, brought international acclaim to writer/director Mamoru Oshii. As an indirect compliment, the Wachowski brothers borrowed Oshii's central concept and several design elements for their 1999 blockbuster, "The Matrix." "The Matrix" got off to a great start, creating a strong sense of paranoia, but disappointed with its slapdash, corny climax.

"I don't think they (the Wachowski brothers) believed in that ending," Oshii mused in a recent interview in Davinci Magazine where he promoted his latest film, "Avalon." A virtuoso of animated and live action story telling, Oshii's use of alternative pasts and virtual reality is intended to provide philosophical meat, rather than superfluous eye candy.

"Avalon," produced by Nippon Herald Films, is not only a departure from animation but from a Japanese locale. Set in Poland in the near future, Oshii gleans a sense of otherworldly antiquity from the run down silhouettes of centuries old, European architecture, a fine contrast to the ready-made structures of modern Japan. These fairytale contours suggest a historical solidity while simultaneously immersing the action in a dreamlike landscape.

Shot mainly in sepia tones, Oshii adds color sparsely to manipulate audience notions of reality, particularly when using images of food to connote Ash's relationship with the world outside of the game. From the café scene in which Ash watches Stunner repulsively gluttonize a plate of sausage, to one in her home in which she lovingly prepares dinner for a possibly non-existent pet, only creature comforts like the food and her dog take on color, implying her psychological distance from the game. The color in the food also teases the audience by creating the illusion of a variety of sensations: taste, smell, and texture, which are not perceivable via the medium of film.

Ostensibly long and excessively slow at times "Avalon's" appeal lies in the layers waiting to be peeled from its stolid surface. Ash advances to class real toward the end of the film, where she finds herself inexplicably imprisoned in her room, the doors and windows bricked in. When she replaces her virtual reality helmet, the full color surroundings of contemporary Poland loom around her - the revelation brought is no less powerful on the spectator's starved senses than when Dorothy awakens in the "Wizard of Oz." But, though Ash seems to have entered our reality, reminders of the illusion, such as an antique cannon, orchestral music, and scattered visual clues, expose this world as no truer than any of the game's previous stages.

In a masterful stroke of meta-cinema, Oshii closes his film in an auditorium, reflecting itself back on the spectators in the theater. We, the audience, become part of the game, our reality as questionable as that of the film's heroine when Oshii's message "Welcome to Avalon" emblazons the film's final frame.

In the Davinci interview, Oshii discussed his reasons for maintaining ambiguity. "Hollywood films about virtual reality always end with a return to the real world," he observed in the October issue. "However, because those real worlds exist inside film they themselves are lies. Reality is a questionable thing, I didn't want to do a movie where the characters returned to reality."

With "Avalon," Oshii has essentially discarded the razzle-dazzle of virtual reality to create a film that pits the illusion of cinema against the assumed reality of sensory perception. "Conclusively, reality doesn't actually exist anywhere," he says. "The one we experience is an illusion inside the heart of each individual."