Angel's Egg

The action of Mamoru Oshii's legendary film takes place in a primitive, cataclysm-stricken world, a reality in which aimlessly wandering people are guided by a mechanical sun.

It is here that two nameless characters meet: a fair-haired girl with sad eyes and a young man who makes her feel uneasy. The girl takes care of a mysterious egg, believing that an angel will hatch from it, while the boy urges her to break the shell. Because only then can she discover the secret inside the egg.

Together, they traverse a depressing world made of bronze, ruins, mechanical entrails, and artifacts from bygone eras. Until the allegorical ending.

The film by Mamoru Oshii, director of the cult animation "Ghost in the Shell" and the now famous Polish-Japanese "Avalon" with Małgorzata Foremniak, is a philosophical and ambitious experiment full of intelligent symbolism, using biblical motifs and dreamlike aesthetics. In interviews over the course of four decades, Oshii has repeatedly explained the meaning of individual scenes, the ending, and his fascination with hope as something that may be hidden in a mystical egg.

Oshii created Angel's Egg in collaboration with visual artist Yoshitaka Amano, one of the leading creators of anime. The film premiered in 1985, and critics immediately recognized it as a sophisticated, ambitious work of art, although it took four decades for Angel's Egg to receive the worldwide recognition it deserved. This is reflected in this year's premiere of a digitally restored version of Angel's Egg at the Cannes Film Festival.