The loss of faith and hope especially when facing the harshest moments of life (and perhaps human history) remains as one of the most “human” of all conflicts. In Oshii’s Angel’s Egg we experience no bloodshed, nor a single dye of of violence or any of the most grotesque aspects of war, instead we contemplate the remains of annihilation through a perpetual nuclear winter. The silence that surrounds the picture becomes more harrowing than any explosion, Oshii shows through brilliant storytelling and symbolism that what is perhaps the most piercing aspect of war (and any humanitarian tragedy) is not only violence and death but also the lost of faith and our own humanity.
The film is also packed with religious symbolism either by images, narrations or parallels. The birth of a glimpse of hope represented by the egg and those who vehemently furl to it, starts to unravel this ambiguous puzzle. Noah’s biblical story is narrated by the Man but he doesn’t use it as a story of hope like you would get lectured on a sermon, instead he uses it to portray a society who feels abandoned, even neglected by God. It is not a mere coincidence that the Man who destroys the egg (or in other words, the hope of the Girl) displays the following religious imagery:
This choice is absolutely deliberate, the Man carries his weapon which resembles a cross in the same manner you would see religious portrayals of Jesus. Someone who should depict a figure of hope is twisted into the destroyer of such.
Going back to the story of Noah’s Ark as narrated by the Man, its importance in the context of the film is not solely to parallel the constant rain devastating the Earth, but it also works as a symbolic threnody of God, who as in Noah’s story “saw the devil within people and regret his creation”. Notice how the following imagery (which in the context of the film has some sort of divine provenance) resembles a weeping eye.
Furthermore, the Girl collects water which is dripping in a similar fashion, which she offers as a tribute.
Later on she falls into a ravine and sinks into the water as she transforms into an adult woman and with her final breath releases several bobbing eggs. Finally, she resurges as a divine figure and with her preferment we are revealed an egg in her lap, accompanying the other eggs which are sprouting from trees.
Far from being a nihilistic exercise, while Oshii doesn’t embrace a blatant “hope is still alive” type of message, he does assure us that re-birth as a civilization is feasible. Growth is ruthless, and it is human and understandable to question our faith (if we even have one), this is part of the process of annihilation and to such follows transformation.