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2015-01-12

Trailer - Angel's Egg (Tenshi no Tamago)



I must admit that this movie has been on my "must watch" list for years, but I've never found the time to watch it. I must resolve that problem one of these days.  This is a magnificent movie trailer.

Angel's Egg (Tenshi no Tamago) is a 1985 art-house film that is a joint collaboration between cinema maverick Mamoru Oshii and prominent visual artist Yoshitaka Amano (of Final Fantasy fame). The surrealist imagery, meditative pacing and sparse dialog - it almost qualifies as a silent film - have earned it cult status among animation lovers. Anime scholar Helen McCarthy hailed Angel's Egg as a "masterpiece of symbolic film-making." What is this movie about? I cannot say. I suspect this is the kind of film where every frame is subject to interpretation, and each viewer will have their own, unique perspective to share. Movies like this are more like mirrors into the soul than anything.

Certainly not for everyone, Angel's Egg is a cult film and deservedly so. I don't believe it has ever been commercially released in the US. Mamoru Oshii is often a difficult character to crack, veering from animation to live-action, action spectacle to experimental art-house. When he says that this movie nearly wrecked his career in the 1980s, one can never tell if that's a complaint...or pride. "The Stray Dog of Anime" lives to suffer for his art.

A Blu-Ray is currently available in Japan, and screenshots look excellent, very sharp and detailed. I wonder if a US release could be possible. I'm very interested to learn what today's anime fans think. Any takers?

1 comment:

Cowboy Dev said...

Angel's Egg is a very excellent artpiece - A true masterpiece. I actually bought the Blu-Ray, there's very little dialouge so no subtiles didn't matter.

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