Forum - View topicAngel's Egg (Movie).
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ALY55A
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Wow, I never even thought of most of the things on this thread, and I think I've read the whole thing, haha. But I have more stuff to add aswell.
+At the closing scene the island they all live on is a shape of an ark, or the bottom of an ark. This could mean that the ark just flipped over and people just started living on that when a different flood came. A reason why there was so many fossils, because they could not survive. +Maybe the stranger is the son of God? In the opening he's standing on a checker board floor and he's standing on one of the checkers, he could be a pawn, playing out a mission or role that the God wanted him to do. He could be like the Jesus, because he was carrying a cross and had wraps around his hands, that could show his crucifiction. +The "God", the glowing eye. Its almost like a machine. And didn't humans create machines? Since Oshii lost his faith in the Christian religion it could of been ended by the question "was God created by man?" I didn't understand the end when the girl fell into the water and she turned into a women. Does anyone know how to explain this? And sorry if this post was kind of "messy"? I'm still trying to wrap my head around the movie and I'm not religious, lol. |
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_Emi_
 Posts: 498 Location: Langjökull |
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Angel's Egg puts me in mind of something that Block (The Seventh Seal) says: Why must he [God] always hide behind unseen miracles and vague promises and hints about eternity? Why can’t I kill God within me? Why does he live on inside me, mocking and tormenting me till I have no rest, even though I curse him and try to tear him from my heart? Why, in spite of everything else, does he remain a reality — a maddening reality I cannot get rid of?
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solon-fyre
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This seems to be an interpretation of the short account St. Peter gives of Christ's descent into the soul prison. The soul prison (if I remember correctly) holds souls from before the flood. They are given the gospel by Christ and when they hear it they are saved. They then leave with Him. (In the Bible this takes place right after the crucifixion as the earthquake breaks open the graves and the souls venture heavenward). I think they are represented as statues because that is the symbol of God's workmanship: the symbol is a statue. The egg is the girl's faith and hope. But it's not empty. When it breaks she is released from the soul prison. I assume that she drowned in the flood like everyone else. Those who seek out God will find him. I think that the fishermen are such seekers as well. There is no reason to assume that the fishermen were not among the "saved" on the ship. Our concern is with the girl, however, so she is shown clearly on the ship. Her soul is in ascent. Below we see the soul prison or "purgatory" where Christ continues his quest for other souls (perhaps this last part is a stretch, but clearly he does not leave...). He carries a cross which is a "weapon" of a spiritual type. His hands are covered to hide his wounds and he asks the only pertinent question ultimately reserved for God: the rhetorical "who are you?"
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Hannyness
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Hey
To offer a new view to this discussion... what if the egg symbolises the girl (Who I'll call Angel for the purposes of this conversation) 's innocence? In the beginning, she is told to keep the egg close and to protect it, and she does so - she treasures her innocence close to her, taking no chances. As the story progresses, she is lured into a sense of security by the man who tells her to protect the egg. At the end, spoiler[her egg and her innocence is destroyed by the man who told her to protect it.] And finally, spoiler[in death, she momentarily becomes a woman, symbolising she is no longer innocent and has grown up. She then spawns many new eggs - new innocence - children.] What are everyone's thoughts? |
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The Xenos
 Posts: 1519 Location: Boston |
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Holy hell... other people have seen Angel's Egg?!
Well, I certainly picked up the rather Freudian and sexual overtones about the loss of innocence in the shattering of the egg. The girl becoming a woman at the end rather seemed to lead towards that. Then again, it might just be me. A girl I had gone out with told me about the film. (That and Eraserhead.. Whoo.. Talk about Freudian. The whole thing is Lynch's paranoid dream about knocking up his girlfriend.) As for the religious imagery.. Whoo... I'm all into theology and took English classes at a Catholic school even. So I've seen plenty of religious imagery. Yet I really didn't pick up anything too clear or specific. Of course I really need to see it again. |
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Aylinn
 Posts: 1684 |
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Maybe because Angel's egg can be interpreted in many ways, it can be religious and anti-religious at the same time. The man with a cross is a follower of Jesus that lost his faith, he is lost in hopelessness. The fishermen symbolize blind faith, they try to catch fishes (the symbol of Christianity), but it's impossible, these fishes don't exist, they are just shadows. In the process of trying to catch something that does not exist, they destroy things that do exist – the buildings in the city. It can be interpreted as condemnation of blind faith. The girl like the fishermen symbolizes dead faith, when the man breaks the egg, he breaks her faith, the egg is empty, there was nothing in it, it was just her imagination, it's a moment of great tragedy not salvation. Whether Tenshi no Tamagao has positive or negative connotation towards faith has been debated, Oshii’s background suggests the latter, but the story is clearly meant to be ambiguous. |
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The Xenos
Posts: 1519 Location: Boston |
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Huh. Yeah, it is a pretty blatant cross shaped... thing. I actually made it for a costume, but never really finished the damn thing. The observation about the fish and mindless fishermen is a pretty good commentary.
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dimahunter
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What do you make of the title Angel's Egg? It's rather absurd for an angel to come from an egg and have reproductive/life/death cycles. Idea of an angel's egg is paradoxical to me.
An egg is an egg though. And if take title at face value, it's an angel's egg. Maybe the focus of the story is the egg, not the man and girl, and all that happens relates to the egg. Might get a different interpretation than focusing on the other characters. Girl made more angel eggs when she died. Maybe it has something to do with experiences that give birth to religion, or of leaving something of self after death like an angel. And the manner that she created the eggs...they were bubbles that came from her mouth? Her voice, words or screams? It happened when she suddenly became an adult. The moment she became an adult was when she was dying. It was also after the egg was broken, first time facing death possibly or that the future she was leaving was broken. I don't know what to make of the statues, except that they are dead. They're like a big line of corpses. They exist, but they're nothing. Maybe the egg was just an egg and her screams were what any bird would give when it was broken. One common theme is live through what you leave behind, and she lost egg, like losing children, or future, and then died and became another one in the line of corpses to be lost in the flood. I don't really know what to make of her producing eggs....just think that they came from her mouth, when she died and became an adult, the fact that they're eggs, and that the title is angel's egg is significant. Just throwing new stuff out there. Other posters more insightful, maybe they can make something of it from angle i don't think i've seen come from yet. |
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dimahunter
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Keep thinking movie is more about time. Egg is symbol of future or hopes for future. Wall of statues/bodies of all those who died before her are just that. The flood will inevitably take them, like the earth is doomed. The sun will burn out and crash into the earth eventually, if we don't blow ourselves up or do something silly to ourselves. They see it coming, in the rain. The fish swimming in the village are shadows of that future. So all the people are dealing with it in different ways. The fisherman try to fight it with their spears and just destroy everything, but they can't kill the shadows of the future or change it. The girl has hopes for it in the egg, even though she'll take her place on that wall, and they'll be swallowed by the flood anyway. The man despairs. It's pointless and hopeless. He carries a cross, symbol of death, and people refer to him as seeker of religion or something, but he's lost hope. So view him in nihilistic despair, seeking something maybe as you said but he's given up, and destroys egg. Seems painful for him to do it, maybe because he wants the egg, but doesn't believe in it and it is painful to see girl with egg so breaks it. Maybe trying to do girl a favor and break her illusions or maybe just to painful to see her with the egg or something. And when he does so, she reaches adulthood and also dies. I don't remember if statue was of her as child or as adult, it would be interesting if it was as a child.
There, an interpretation without christianity in it. |
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Idan.
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@dimahunter - as far as I remember the statue was a child.
Wow. After watching Angel's Egg I was searching for something like this thread. It isn't very active unfortunately but it's great that somebody came up with such idea. It took me ages to read whole discussion as English is not my first language (and you use here so difficult words!), but it was worh it. Actually, while watching the movie I was thinking about some of your interpretations (fishermen searching for God, fish - a symbol of christianity, the man - Jesus etc.), but I had (and still have) also many questions and problems, which you haven't considered. ● What are these bottles of water which the girl sets on the stairs? Water is symbol of fertility (someone above was talking about girl's innocence...) and life. Any ideas? ● What about these eggs and machines in 0:55? No idea here. ● Wikipedia says: "The girl, who lives alone, collects water in bottles, watching as bubbles within them rise to the top". It can be connected with the bubbles-eggs after she dies... no? Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating. ● A bird symbol (and a dove in Noah's story). What with that? ● A pale hand of the girl in the opening turns into a hand of Christ/seeker. It suggests that your interpretation of two types of faith represented by two main (and only) characters is right. At least I think so. ● Why Christ hadn't destroyed the egg earlier and followed the girl? ● Bible: "Jesus once said to his followers, “Come ye after Me, and I will make you to become fishers of men”" . Just to remind. Even if created by God, fishermen still cannot understand its meaning (read below). ● If there is a shadow of a fish, haven't you thought that maybe there is also some real fish above fishermen? You know, something must have dropped the shadow. If I was right, the fishermen's struggle could depict a wrong way to reach the God. Maybe they should have looked to the sky rather than trying to catch the shadow? Also, is Platon's idea of shadows in a cave familiar to you? If not, Google it. It suits my conception. Sorry for all my mistakes, I am Polish and I am fifteen. It's difficult to write in foreign languages. I spend a half of a day on watching the film, reading about it and writing this post (does it make any sense?). Hope someday somebody will reply me 
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Aylinn
Posts: 1684 |
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The dove may be a symbol of a lost hope in Angel's Egg. In the story of Noah's Ark that the man tells he changes the ending and makes it more sombre. The dove has never returned and the people on the ark have eventually forgotten that they released the bird and even that there is a world sunken under water. Later, the man brings into question the existence of himself, the fish and the bird. He says Maybe you and I and the fish only exist in the memory of a person who is gone. Maybe no one really exist and it is only raining outside. Maybe the bird never existed at all. This is, I believe, a reference to Berkeley's philosophy. And taking this into consideration it is interesting how Oshii used the story of Noah's Ark, in which the dove is a symbol of hope, and Berkeley's philosophy. As far as I remember, Berkeley denied that external reality exists objectively and is cognizable. He wanted to prove that the God exists and we may be only ideas in his mind, thus the existence of God cannot be rebutted by evidence gathered from the supposed "objective" world - (or something like that it has been a long time since I had to learn philosophy, so I don't remember it very well.) Yet, in Oshii's movie the man is clearly someone who throws doubt on God's existence. He changes the story of Noah's Ark and uses Berkeley's philosophy to express his doubts in an indirect way.
Nice to see I'm not the only one who thinks that it may be a reference to Plato. 
Nie przejmuj się, dobrze Ci idzie pisanie po angielsku.
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JonSolo
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I don't know what brought it to my mind, but I saw this film ages ago, when I was a child myself.
I've been pondering the ending and want to mention it here because I don't seem to see the same interpretations as I once read (or formed myself, I can't remember)... Given the previous interpretations, it seems reasonable to assume the land is a giant ark of some kind. But what stimulated my imagination much more was the idea that the continent or tiny bit of land in that vast sea was actually an overturned leaf in a pool of water. The way the camera pulls back gives that impression that this is in fact, a tiny thing that we are looking at. Somehow I like the idea of that literal "worlds within worlds" metaphor from this interpretation. I like this film, although I don't find the Christian allegory all that interesting, it's still quite stimulating and rare for a film these days not to have everything spelled out in large typeface. |
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delamarche
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I'm surprised no one posted the interpretation linked from the wikipedia page:
http://web.archive.org/web/20080611162246/http://blogs.teodesian.net/wp/?p=117 |
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Galap
Moderator
 Posts: 2354 |
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I thought my interpretation would be a common one, but from reading these comments, it seems not to be, so I'll write it here. I don't claim to understand the film entirely, but I think I got some of it.
I thought the film was essentially about deconversion from religion, or loss of faith, and criticism of religions, particularly christianity. The egg represents faith, or the maintenance of faith inside a person. It's an egg because faith can be a fragile thing, and as is often repeated in the film, "you have to break an egg to see what's inside", which is referencing the fact that for many people, the more they learn about the world and the physical nature of things, the harder it is to maintain faith in their religion. To understand how the universe works is to abandon the need for a god, to lose your faith. The bottles represent the endless hours that have been devoted to religion, endless time spent on empty ritual. Filling the bottles again and again, spiraling up and up the edges of the staircases and halls, showing that for almost an eternity, people have toiled building up religions, converting others, preaching, etc., but it is all to no end if the principles of the faith aren't true. The fishermen shows another aspect of many religious people, how they chase after the truths in their faith, endlessly pursue some enlightenment from their religion, but there are no real fish, only shadows. It should also be mentioned that the fish whose shadows we see are coelacanths, fish which have remained unchanged for millions of years. Fossils have been found, and for a time they were thought to be long extinct, until living ones which were almost identical were caught. This in itself represents how religions are ancient and static, refusing to change in the face of progress, fossils if you will. Many other fossils are depicted in the film, especially the one of the bird. This serves to convey the message that religions (Christianity in particular) are fossils with no place in the modern world. Another interesting part is when the man tells the story of Noah's ark, but instead of it ending where the dove finds a branch and everyone eventually finds land, the man says that the dove never returned and the ark was doomed to wander the endless seas forever. The film then ends zooming out to show that the entire film takes place on an enormous capsized boat, apparently the ark. I think this whole thing signifies death of the belief in that kind of mythology, but I'm less sure about that part of it. There was more there, but it's been quite a while since I've seen Angel's Egg, so I don't remember everything too well. |
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Seekr12
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I'd like to offer up a completely different take than anything that's been mentioned here yet. I could be way off, but here goes.
I'm completely with all you guys on the religious allegories, but I think that's just one way of looking at it. That's definitely there, but an interpretation I had while watching the film is that that there's a message about the feelings one has when having a miscarriage of a child. Throughout the film, the girl has the egg under her shirt on her belly as if to appear "pregnant". The girl is constantly nervous and terrified that she'll lose or break the egg, and is very protective of it. I feel that the girl even being portrayed as a "girl" is meant to portray the powerlessness one feels when having a miscarriage, and I feel that the girl's "true form" is when she becomes a woman at the end. A lot of the themes you guys have mentioned about the loss of innocence with the egg breaking definitely apply, I took the egg breaking as the "miscarriage". I also interpreted the "fishermen" as an allegory for someone attempting to have a child and failing. The nightmarish cityscape was an allegory for the feelings of depression, hopelessness and powerlessness one feels when losing a child. When one loses a child, question's of God's existence and other existential questions often happen to people, thus all the religious allegories can meld quite nicely with my miscarriage theory. Maybe I'm way off the mark, but I feel that this is just one interpretation of multitudes that someone could have about the movie. |
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