| Angel's Egg | |
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| 天使のたまご (Tenshi no Tamago) |
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| Genre | Fantasy, Surrealism, Drama |
| Anime film | |
| Director | Mamoru Oshii |
| Studio | Tokuma Shoten |
| Released | 22 December 1985 |
| Runtime | 71 minutes |
Angel's Egg (天使のたまご Tenshi no Tamago) is a Japanese anime feature film produced by Tokuma Shoten in 1985. A collaboration between popular artist Yoshitaka Amano and director Mamoru Oshii, it incorporates surrealistic and existentialist qualities. It uses almost no little dialogue, making it a commonly cited example of progressive anime.[1]
Contents |
Plot
Angel's Egg follows the daily life of a young girl in a surreal world of darkness and shadows.
The girl, whose name is not mentioned, is the keeper of a mysterious egg. She spends her time collecting bottles and artifacts in a gothic, dead city. A man, whose name also remains a mystery, arrives in the dark town one day riding a machine and wearing a cross-like weapon on his back. The two meet and talk, though their dialogue consists mostly of the single, repeated question "Who are you?"
Meanwhile, the shadows of giant coelacanths appear within the town, and then the many human statues which line it come alive and begin hunting the fishes with spears.
Inside the girl's vast cavernous "refuge", which contains many strange fossils and her collection, the man tells the girl a tale similar to Noah's Ark. He waits for the girl to fall asleep and breaks the egg.
The girl reacts in anguish and follows the departing man, only to fall into a ravine of water and die. Her dying exhalation under the water blossoms into bubbles of "eggs" on the surface. A symbolic ending of apocalypse and rebirth is mixed with a gradual revelation of the story's world, which is highly abstract and ambiguous.
Cast & Characters
Girl
The young girl portrays innocence in a world of darkness. She lives in an abandoned planetarium and guards the mysterious egg, a focal point of the movie. The girl, who lives alone, collects water in bottles, watching it as bubbles rise to the top. Voiced by: Mako Hyōdō
Man
The man is portrayed as a Christ-like (or even Antichrist-like) figure, carrying a cross on his back and wearing bandages on his hands. He tries to protect the young girl once he meets her, but ultimately steals the egg that she keeps. Voiced by: Jinpachi Nezu
Narrator
Voiced by: Keiichi Noda
Symbolism
Chapter 3 in Brian Ruh's overview of Mamoru Oshii's filmography, "Stray Dog of Anime", provides an analytical commentary on Angel's Egg.
Music
The music in Angel's Egg was composed by Yoshihiro Kanno who seldom composed film scores.
References
- ^ Angel's Egg (anime) at Anime News Network's Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2006-07-09.
Further Reading
Ruh, Brian. 2004. Stray Dog of Anime: The Films of Mamoru Oshii. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-4039-6334-5
External links
- Angel's Egg at the Internet Movie Database
- Mamoru Oshii's Angel's Egg
- Yoshitaka Amano's Artwork for Angel's Egg
- Unofficial interpretation regarding film's symbolism
- Positive Review
- Negative Review (Archived 2009-10-25)
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