Tenshi no Tamago (The Angel Egg) - The 1985 animated film

Tenshi no Tamago (The Angel's Egg) (in the original Japanese: 天使 の た ま ご) also known as Angel's Egg is a 1985 Japanese animated (anime) film aimed at home video (OAV) distribution written and directed by Mamoru Oshii. Released by Tokuma Shoten on December 15, 1985, the film was a collaboration between artist Yoshitaka Amano and Oshii. It has very few spoken dialogue. Its fragmented history and visual style have led it to be described as "an animated art rather than a story"

Tenshi no tamago is full of Christian symbols and references. They are shown both through objects, such as the tree of life, the dove, the cross-shaped weapon carried by the male protagonist and the story of Noah's Ark and the universal flood, but also through positions and gestures, such as the baptismal immersion in water by the girl or the statuary poses reminiscent of Christian sculptures.

History

Tenshi no tamago tells the life of an unnamed young girl who lives alone in an undefined building near an abandoned city. She takes care of a large egg she hides under her dress, protecting it as she searches for food, water and bottles in the crumbling neo-Gothic / Art Nouveau cityscape.

In the prologue, an unnamed boy in military clothing observes a globe-shaped ship covered in thousands of goddess-like sculptures descending from the sky. Awakened by the whistles of the globe, the girl begins her day of research, but soon meets the boy on a wide road, traveled only by biomechanical tanks.

Frightened by the boy, who carries a cross-shaped device on his shoulder, the girl runs away into an alley. When he returns to investigate, the boy is gone. He resumes looking for food and glass bottles, avoiding the statuary statues of men holding harpoons.

Later, the girl sees the boy again and approaches him. He turns and surprisingly takes out his egg from under his cloak; he had abandoned her on the square where he was eating. He tells the girl "Keep the precious things inside of you or you will lose them" and returns the egg.

When asked what she thinks is inside the egg, the girl claims she cannot tell him. The boy then suggests breaking the egg to find out, which incenses the girl and pushes her away, only to be chased by the boy.

Eventually the chase gives way to the bond of a couple, while the stoic figures of the fishermen come to life and frighten the girl. Fishermen run after huge shadows of coelacanth-like fish swimming across the surfaces of streets and buildings.

Animated men aimlessly throw their harpoons at the shadows, hitting only brick and stone. As the shadows swim away, the girl explains that while the fish are gone, the men persist in hunting. The couple awaits the hustle and bustle inside a vast cathedral decorated with fish-stained windows.

Leaving town and heading towards the girl's settlement, the couple stop inside a massive structure that appears to be the carcass of a beached leviathan. Noting an incision of a tree on a pillar, the boy describes his memory of a similar tree that has grown to contain a giant egg containing a sleeping bird.

When the girl asks what the bird is dreaming of, the boy categorically asks if the girl still does not want to tell him what is inside her egg. The two go up a staircase adorned with bottles of water, like the ones the girl collects, at each step.

Adding her latest tribute to the bottle line, the girl and boy reflect on their amnesia, questioning their identity and purpose. The boy begins to tell the biblical story of Noah's Ark.

The tale departs when the boy claims that the dove never returned to the ark, and therefore his passengers forgot why they were sailing, they forgot the civilization drowned below, they forgot about the animals which, as a result, turned into stone .

The boy asks the girl if they themselves or if the strange world they live in really exists, or if it's just a memory like her image of the sleeping bird. The girl suddenly insists that the bird exists and leads the boy down the corridors of ancient fossils to get to a nest. There they find the skeleton of a giant angelic bird. The girl explains her intention to hatch the egg.

Later, the couple warms up inside the girl's settlement. As the girl falls asleep, she talks to the creature inside her egg about their future together. Outside, heavy rain consumes the city and floods the streets.

As the girl is pushed away from the egg in her sleep, the boy takes it and breaks it, leaving it later. The next day, the girl discovers the broken shell of her egg and screams, completely broken. He begins to run away from his settlement in the woods, past a giant tree with a huge egg, in pursuit of the boy.

In haste, he falls into a ravine. Under the water of the chasm, the girl transforms into an adult woman before releasing a last breath, which rises to the surface like a multitude of bouncing eggs.

When the rain suddenly subsides, egg-bearing trees like those described by the boy are shown scattered throughout the landscape. The boy stands on a vast beach strewn with white feathers as the globe-like ship rises from under the ocean.

Among the thousands of statues that adorn the globe there is a novelty: a figure of the girl, sitting serene on a throne and caressing the egg on her lap. The screen slowly zooms in to reveal that the land of the beach, forest and city is part of a small and lonely island within a vast sea, which looks not unlike the hull of an capsized ship.

Production

Before the production of Tenshi no tamago, Mamoru Oshii lost his faith in Christianity. Senses of Cinema stated that the film "seems centered on existential despair, caused by the collapse of one's faith"; Oshii himself said he didn't know what the film is about.

The film re-proposes the ideas developed by Oshii for a canceled Lupine III film (which later became The Legend of Babylon's Gold); both concepts focus on a mysterious girl, while the angel's egg is based on the angel's fossil from the canceled film.

Tenshi no tamago was a collaboration between Oshii and Amano. The animation was produced by Studio DEEN, with Hiroshi Hasegawa, Masao Kobayashi, Mitsunori Miura and Yutaka Wada working as producers. Oshii and Amano collaborated on the script, and Yoshihiro Kanno composed the music.

Tenshi no tamago was released in the home video format on December 15, 1985 by Tokuma Shoten. The 71-minute OVA would later be used as the framework for the Australian film In the Aftermath (1987) directed by Carl Colpaert. Colpaert's film occasionally intersects with footage of Oshii's Tenshi no tamago with dubbed dialogue, which does not appear in Oshii's film.

Technical data

Regia Mamoru Oshii
Producer Hiroshi Hasegawa, Masao Kobayashi, Mitsunori Miura, Yutaka Wada
Film script Mamoru Oshii, Yoshitaka Amano
character design Yoshitaka amano
Artistic direction Yoshitaka Amano, Shichirou Kobayashi
Music Yoshihiro Kanno
STUDIO Studio Deen, Tokuma Shoten
1 edition 15 December 1985
Relationship 16:9
Duration 71 minutes

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/