An Extravagantly Post-Apocalyptic Work of Animation, 1985’s ‘Angel’s Egg’ Gets Another Run

Mamoru Oshii’s “Angel’s Egg” (1985) was recently feted by the 63rd New York Film Festival, presumably on the occasion of its 40th anniversary. “Now recognized as a landmark work of animation” — Film at Lincoln Center didn’t elaborate upon from where this recognition came — Mr. Oshii’s movie was touted as a “cryptic, allegorical masterpiece.” A stickler might point out that an allegory is inherently anti-cryptic by definition, but we get the point: “Angel’s Egg” is headier than your typical cartoon.Mr. Oshii’s picture is being distributed by an outfit dubbed GKIDS, but it is not a film for children. The picture’s traditional hand-drawn animation and requisite stylization of form — the jagged, overscaled distortions we have come to know as anime — will likely pique a youngster’s interest. So, too, our two characters: a doe-eyed heroine and a towering, superhero-like adolescent. Still, Mr. Oshii’s purview is philosophical in tone and bleak in effect, characteristics amplified by the picture’s moody palette and stolid rhythms. “Angel’s Egg” is not a lively film.Nor is there much that is living-and-breathing within its parameters. The world that Mr. Oshii invented with the illustrator Yoshitaka Amano is extravagantly post-apocalyptic. Towering cities of European mien are embedded within a landscape that is alternately biological in function and industrial in purpose. Infinite vistas and sparkling space ships are redolent of vintage science fiction illustration. Cobblestone streets and back alleys recall 19th-century London; a mass of immovable soldiers, the funerary art of the Qin Dynasty, circa 200 B.C.Quite the melange of influences, all of which is held together by a crisp visual elegance and a stilted, puppet-like choreography. Men of a certain age may remember the magazine Heavy Metal, a slick comics compilation inspired by the French publication Métal hurlant and, as such, culled largely from European sources. Its specialty was dire futuristic fantasy, graphic violence, and an abundance of heaving female bosoms. Sensibility was privileged over story. Lots of pretty pictures were tied to muddled narratives — a curious gambit for a narrative medium. Scene from ‘Angel’s Egg.’ Via GKIDSAnd so it is with “Angel’s Egg,” a film of imaginative reach and biblical portent. Mr. Oshii is on record stating that he isn’t a Christian, but he has been drawn to its foundational stories from a young age. Noah’s Ark makes its way into the film’s ominous, overcast dreamscape and there are direct quotes from the Bible. Our nameless heroine carries the title object under her raiment in a clear, if ungainly, allusion to the story of the virgin birth. Our hero wields a weapon that is shaped like a cross. Mr. Oshii prefers his symbolism loaded.The story, as much as there is a story, concerns a young girl wandering through the byways of a dead planet. While looking for food, she finds and subsequently protects a large egg believing that it holds an angel. We watch as the boy flits in and out of these travels, and are left to wonder if he’s a harbinger of good tidings or ill will. When he suggests that the egg be broken open it is more an indication of curiosity than aggression. Still, the girl is aghast — that is, when she’s not traveling hither and yon, collecting empty jars once filled with water and lining them along a fault in a city wall.“The plot,” we are told, “is neither here nor there,” but any picture that ends on a note as decisive (and drawn out) as “Angel’s Egg” has, in fact, been traveling to one point from another. Count Mr. Oshii’s film as a cousin to ventures like George Dunning’s “Yellow Submarine” (1969) or René Laloux’s “Fantastic Planet” (1973) — that is to say, maundering phantasmagorias best appreciated by those who are in tune with their excesses.

An Extravagantly Post-Apocalyptic Work of Animation, 1985’s ‘Angel’s Egg’ Gets Another Run

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