Angel's Egg

Infobox animanga/Header
name = Angel's Egg


caption =
ja_name = 天使のたまご
ja_name_trans = Tenshi no Tamago
genre = Drama, Fantasy, SurrealismInfobox animanga/Movie
director = Mamoru Oshii
studio = Tokuma Shoten
released = 22 December 1985
runtime = 71 minutesNihongo|"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 but very little dialogue, making it a commonly cited example of progressive anime. [Ann anime|id=788. Retrieved 2006-07-09.]

Plot

"Angel's Egg" follows the daily life of a young girl in a surreal world of darkness and shadows.

The girl, whose name we do not learn, 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 on his back. The two meet and talk, though their dialogue consists mostly of the single, repeated question "Who are you?"

Meanwhile, shadow fish appear within the town, and then the many statues which line it come alive and begin hunting the fish 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.

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.

Narrator

ymbolism

There are no official or published explanations of the symbolism present in the film, but some individuals have made non-authoritative attempts, such as [http://blogs.teodesian.net/wp/?p=117 here] .

Music

The music in Angel's Egg was composed by Yoshihiro Kanno who seldom composed film scores.

References

ee also

*List of animated feature films

External links

* [http://www.cultivatetwiddle.com/angelsegg/ Mamoru Oshii's Angel's Egg]
* [http://www.amanosworld.com/html/work/egg.html Yoshitaka Amano's Artwork for Angel's Egg]
* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0208502/ Tenshi no Tamago/Angel's Egg @ IMDb]