Angel's EggPhilosophers and artists have long pondered whether mankind is anything more than the fleeting dream of an inscrutable (and perhaps indifferent) deity. Angel's Egg is a Japanese animated film by Mamoru Oshii, who co-wrote the story along with graphic designer Yoshitaka Amano (known for his work on films like Vampire Hunter D and video games like "Final Fantasy"). The story follows a young, unnamed girl who scavenges for food and water at night through seemingly deserted cities, while carefully protecting an oversized egg under her shirt. She is approached by a young, unnamed man who shows an interest in her egg, and he accompanies her as they bear witness to the bizarre events in the city and contemplate the world.
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If the plot of Angel's Egg appears sparse, it is because the film prefers to approach its subject matter from a more abstract route, favoring metaphor and emotion over logical exposition. This makes Angel's Egg unusual among anime, although it is consistent with other philosophical works by Oshii, who is also known for films like Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer and Ghost in the Shell. The character designs of Amano are evident in the young man and the girl--white hair, pale skin, slender builds, and an aloof quality to them. When the young man shows up, armed with some unusual-looking weapon on his shoulder, standing a couple of feet taller than the girl, she understandably perceives him as a threat. After all, the only other people she has seen in the city are a group of deathly still soldiers armed with large spears, with which they hunt the shadows of giant fish to no avail. The girl seems to enjoy the world in which she exists, suggested by the smile on her face when she emerges from her subterranean abode in the morning, and looks out over the city bathed in sunlight. She skulks through the streets and alleys of the shadowy necropolis at night, looking for jars of jelly to eat, and filling large bottles with water and inexplicably adorns her home with them. There is an angelic innocence to the girl; when she enters a dilapidated church, where little more than the shards of stained glass windows remain, the moonlight falls upon her and she looks as though she were radiating a divine aura. The relation to the girl and the egg is ambiguous, hinted at in the enigmatic opening to Angel's Egg, implied to be her dream. A pair of disembodied hands mold some invisible substance--something which must be spherical (or ovoid) in shape; one hand remains and appears to crush that shape. The film then cuts away to a bird-like being gestating within a transparent egg, as music plays that recalls the transformative "Star Gate" sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey. And after this, the same young man the girl later encounters is standing on a checkerboard terrain, ornamented with antennae-like protrusions, visited by an eye-like spaceship, its spherical shape outfitted all around with statues of various warriors. The suggestion is that the girl has a connection to whatever divine force controls their world. The egg may indeed be the egg of an "angel", like the giant skeletal remains she later shows the young man. It could also be that the egg represents their world, and that she is a scion of a god, tasked to protect or "save" it--the irony is that she is poorly equipped to do so, as a brave but naive young girl. It's even possible that whatever is within the egg is the "dreamer" of this world, and that to awaken or shatter the egg would represent a destruction of that dream.
Angel's Egg features a substantial amount of Biblical references. The young man describes the story of Noah's Ark, about how God regretted creating mankind and in his sorrow flooded the world, saving only those aboard the ark. He tells this story in the shadow of an ark implied to be the same from the story as it rains outside; it is as though the flood never really ended, and everyone left in the world are the ghosts of those drowned by that flood. The girl and young man possess attributes that recall the story of Jesus Christ. The girl carries the baby-sized egg under her shirt, giving her the look of being pregnant. Since the egg cannot physiologically be her own child, this suggests a comparison between her and the Virgin Mary--the egg represents a kind of "immaculate conception". The weapon the wandering boy carries is shaped like a crucifix, which he perpetually carries over his shoulder like Jesus on the journey to Calvary. Even the soldier-like denizens of the city are thrown into a frenzy at the appearance of umbral fish and hurl their spears with abandon, gaining purchase in their incorporeal quarry. The spears are a reference to the apocryphal Lance of Longinus, and the "fish" (or Ichthys) has long been used to represent faithful Christians. When the young man encounters the girl for the first time, it is atop one of a squadron of biomechanical tanks, equipped with phallic-looking cannons. This suggests sexual unease or anxiety--a divide between man and woman; the girl is also the only female in the entire film, and perhaps the entire world. Water is also a pervading motif in Angel's Egg. The girl stores it for unknown reasons in uniform vials, and the fountains of the city and the streams in the woods possess an eeriness bordering on the supernatural. Water is depicted as a paradox of life and death--it is essential for life, but too much destroys, as in the story of Noah's Ark. Angel's Egg is somber and dream-like, accented by the haunting musical score of Yoshihiro Kanno and the gothic architecture and design, frequently drenched in thick shadows. Its ambiance is meant to evoke feelings of despair, loneliness, and silent contemplation, while inviting individual interpretation of the symbolism. There is very little dialogue in Angel's Egg, even when the girl and the young man are together. The young man does most of the talking, and his statements are mostly asked as though he were trying to understand the world in which they exist-- trying to draw some sense of meaning from the young girl who appears to be more in tune with it than he is. Despite his questions, he receives no conclusive answers, highlighting another theme of Angel's Egg: God's silence and the challenges that arise from feeling abandoned or unloved by one's creator.
Recommended for: Fans of a philosophical and pensive animated film with significant metaphorical imagery and biblical allegories. Angel's Egg deals with lofty themes like the nature of our reality and the importance of humanity versus the whims of a higher power, and coping with the possibility that we have no real control over it.
Angel's Egg features a substantial amount of Biblical references. The young man describes the story of Noah's Ark, about how God regretted creating mankind and in his sorrow flooded the world, saving only those aboard the ark. He tells this story in the shadow of an ark implied to be the same from the story as it rains outside; it is as though the flood never really ended, and everyone left in the world are the ghosts of those drowned by that flood. The girl and young man possess attributes that recall the story of Jesus Christ. The girl carries the baby-sized egg under her shirt, giving her the look of being pregnant. Since the egg cannot physiologically be her own child, this suggests a comparison between her and the Virgin Mary--the egg represents a kind of "immaculate conception". The weapon the wandering boy carries is shaped like a crucifix, which he perpetually carries over his shoulder like Jesus on the journey to Calvary. Even the soldier-like denizens of the city are thrown into a frenzy at the appearance of umbral fish and hurl their spears with abandon, gaining purchase in their incorporeal quarry. The spears are a reference to the apocryphal Lance of Longinus, and the "fish" (or Ichthys) has long been used to represent faithful Christians. When the young man encounters the girl for the first time, it is atop one of a squadron of biomechanical tanks, equipped with phallic-looking cannons. This suggests sexual unease or anxiety--a divide between man and woman; the girl is also the only female in the entire film, and perhaps the entire world. Water is also a pervading motif in Angel's Egg. The girl stores it for unknown reasons in uniform vials, and the fountains of the city and the streams in the woods possess an eeriness bordering on the supernatural. Water is depicted as a paradox of life and death--it is essential for life, but too much destroys, as in the story of Noah's Ark. Angel's Egg is somber and dream-like, accented by the haunting musical score of Yoshihiro Kanno and the gothic architecture and design, frequently drenched in thick shadows. Its ambiance is meant to evoke feelings of despair, loneliness, and silent contemplation, while inviting individual interpretation of the symbolism. There is very little dialogue in Angel's Egg, even when the girl and the young man are together. The young man does most of the talking, and his statements are mostly asked as though he were trying to understand the world in which they exist-- trying to draw some sense of meaning from the young girl who appears to be more in tune with it than he is. Despite his questions, he receives no conclusive answers, highlighting another theme of Angel's Egg: God's silence and the challenges that arise from feeling abandoned or unloved by one's creator.
Recommended for: Fans of a philosophical and pensive animated film with significant metaphorical imagery and biblical allegories. Angel's Egg deals with lofty themes like the nature of our reality and the importance of humanity versus the whims of a higher power, and coping with the possibility that we have no real control over it.