Angel's Egg

Blue tinted gothic buildings, abandoned landscape, and animal skeletons shattered everywhere; the post apocalyptic world presented in Mamoru Oshii's beautiful poetic work is the textbook model but creepier and more enigmatic than any.The wide landscape is mainly covered in pitch black darkness and is deserted, leaving only loneliness and the eerie sounds as a companion.

It is more gothic than anything else and the wide range of symbolisms are the only thing that makes up a 'story'.These symbolisms, appearing from the very beginning to the end, however are certainly vague and much difficult interpret and thus it is an indisputable fact that the movie isn't aimed at everyone.Oshii himself has said that he has no idea what the film is about and it is up to the viewers to interpret it.That said, his loss of faith in Christianity is definitely reflected in the work.The most common interpretations all discuss the Christian imageries and symbolisms in the film.As much as I'd love to write about all of them, I'm afraid that I'll be just borrowing those words from those who wrote about it before.

Spiritual quest aside, the journey of the movie starts from nothing and ends at practically nothing.It tweaks the existing Biblical story to break free of faith and yet finds itself cremated within the trials created by god.If the journey of the two characters served any purpose, only they will know.Simply pointing at something and saying "that's the story" won't work with Angel's Egg at all.This is probably why the movie is considered as an artform itself than a movie.It is art animated, conveying the absolute beauty and quality of vintage animation and the entire conversations in the movie constitutes upto less than five minutes in the whole movie (about which I've read that the conversations were all included in just one page of the script).

Angel's Egg is not the best anime I've seen, nor is it the only one that deals with vague themes or talks in symbolisms.But it's probably the first ever anime that is entirely purposeless and yet flows like a river to me, that too in the form or visuals and music, not conversation. Oshii said that the movie made it difficult for him to get jobs for years, which i can both understand and feel bad at.The surrealistic and visual narrative nature of the film might not suit everyone after all.The movie is a quest for nothing.I love that meaninglessness and the spirituality that dwells under the surface, and appreciate the chance Oshii and Amano gave us to experience such a beauty.

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." ~ John 3:16.