''The Angel'' (french: L'Ange) is a 1982 French

experimental An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when a ...

art film An art film (or arthouse film) is typically an independent film, aimed at a niche market rather than a mass market audience. It is "intended to be a serious, artistic work, often experimental and not designed for mass appeal", "made primarily f ...

directed by

Patrick Bokanowski Patrick Bokanowski (born 23 June 1943 in Algiers, French Algeria) is a French filmmaker who makes experimental and animated films. Career The film '' The Angel'' (1982) is his most prominent work. It is accompanied by a soundtrack made by his wi ...

. It was released on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

for the first time in 2009, edited by the British Animation Awards. The film was shown at

Fantasporto Fantasporto, also known as Fantas, is an international film festival, annually organized since 1981 in Porto, Portugal. Giving screen space to fantasy/science fiction/ horror-oriented commercial feature films, auteur films and experimental proje ...

during February

1983 The year 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call. Events January * January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to TCP/IP is officially completed (this is considered to be the beginning ...

and shown to the general public in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

on April 4,

1984 Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeas ...

Synopsis

''The Angel'' does not have a narrative set in place; rather, there is a guideline governing its shifts and development. The masked silhouettes climb stairs, and engage in various meetings on each level, while being digitally manipulated in time. The film could be described as a spiritual quest that doubles as a study of optical illusions, Bokanowski recreating all the objectives of his cameras. This is a

feature film A feature film or feature-length film is a narrative film (motion picture or "movie") with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole presentation in a commercial entertainment program. The term ''feature film'' originall ...

, which is rare for artisanal animation and

films. In the booklet that accompanies the

which contains Bokanowski's sole two documentaries (''La Part du Hasard'',

, on the painter Henri Dimier; and ''Le Rêve éveillé'', 2003; dialogues between the psychotherapist Colette Béatrice Aboulker-Muscat and her patients), editor Pip Chodorov wrote: "The search for the overrunning of perception, and thereby oneself, is an expression of the spirituality present in the lives of these two figures: inspiration that we also found in Bokanowski's films, which are also searches into abstraction in the real, mysterious blanks that recover the daily. In his film ''The Angel'', characters search for light, and rise in spirals towards beacons of white and pure light, the librarian-researchers conduct a fierce intellectual quest, hoping for an illuminating response buried under mountains of books. Light plays a central role for the filmmaker, just like it does for the painter and therapist, as a peak of dramatic pleasure. We are pulled forward, upward, through these leaks in the twilight towards the light."Kira B.M. Films et Re:Voir Vidéo,

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

, p. 6.

Themes of ascension

Again according to

Raphaël Bassan Raphaël Bassan (born 1948) is a French film critic and journalist, who has specialized in experimental film and the history of cinema. He has also made three short movies. Biography Bassan was born in Burgas, Bulgaria, of French nationality, ...

, ''The Angel'' can be seen as a spiritual ascension.

creates his own universe and obeys his own aesthetic logic. It takes us through a series of distorted areas, obscure visions, metamorphoses, and synthetic objects. Indeed, in the film, the human may be viewed as a fetish object (for example, the doll hanging by a thread), with reference to

Kafkaesque Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It typi ...

and

Freudian Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts i ...

theories on

automata An automaton (; plural: automata or automatons) is a relatively self-operating machine, or control mechanism designed to automatically follow a sequence of operations, or respond to predetermined instructions.Automaton – Definition and More ...

and the fear of man faced with something as complex as him. The ascent of the stairs would be the liberation of the ideas of death, culture, and sex that makes us reach the emblematic figure of the angel.

Themes of vision and sight

For Jacques Kermabon, ''The Angel'' is a variation of

optics Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultrav ...

, as control and manipulation of light, as attested by the integration of plastic optical devices. Similarly, the effects on perspective diagrams emphasizes the relativity of this representation process. In the same gesture, the aesthetics of ''The Angel'', which opens up an infinity of possibilities, announces a cinema that would be before any movement, rhythm, rhyme, form, or work on the color and material: a cinema where the meaning is dissolved and effect predominates. In a way,

brilliantly realized what some artists-filmmakers envisioned in the 1920s: an aesthetic for creations to come – the ''

Cinéma pur Non-narrative film is an aesthetic of cinematic film that does not narrate, or relate "an event, whether real or imaginary". It is usually a form of art film or experimental film, not made for mass entertainment. Narrative film is the dominant ae ...

'' and the first avant-garde.

Soundtrack

A CD album containing the soundtrack accompanying the film, composed by Michèle Bokanowski, the director's wife, was released during 2003 by the label trAace under the title ''L'Ange''.

Technical information

*Title: ''The Angel'' *Country:

*Release Date: 25 May 1982 *Format: Color *Duration: 64 Minutes *Shooting:

1977 Events January * January 8 – Three bombs explode in Moscow within 37 minutes, killing seven. The bombings are attributed to an Armenian separatist group. * January 10 – Mount Nyiragongo erupts in eastern Zaire (now the Democrat ...

– 1982 *Directing, Editing, Special Effects, and Cinematography:

*Music and Sound Editing: Michèle Bokanowski *Cameraman: Philippe Lavalette *Sets and Models: Christian Daninos and

*Masks: Christian Daninos *Costumes: Domenika *Production: Kira B.M. Films *Distribution: Forum Distribution

Cast

*First Librarian:

Maurice Baquet Maurice Louis Baquet (26 May 1911 – 8 July 2005) was a French actor and cellist. He was born in Villefranche-sur-Saône and died in Noisy-le-Grand.Rita Renoir Rita Renoir (19 January 1934 – 4 May 2016) was a French strip-teaser and actress. Biography Renoir was the Vedette of the Crazy Horse Saloon, in Paris, between the 1950s and 1960s, becoming one of the most famous European strip-teasers. In 1 ...

*Sewing Woman: Patricia Peretti *Librarian: Alain Salomon *Librarian: Dominique Serrand *Librarian: Nicolas Serreau *Librarian: Max Guy Cravagnac *Librarian: Abby Patrix

Report on the animation

According to

, in his article «''L'Ange'': Un météore dans le ciel de l'animation,»

's film, along with Piotr Kamler's film '' Chronopolis'', both having premiered in 1982 at the

Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...

, can be considered the beginnings of contemporary animation. This remark is based on the technical means and the visual or philosophical sense employed by

. The masks erase all human personality in the characters.

would thus have total control over the "matter" of the image and its optical composition. This is especially noticeable throughout the film, with images taken through distorted objectives or a plastic work on the sets and costumes, for example in the scene of the designer.

References

Bibliography

, «Bokanowski/Kamler: Deux avant-gardes graphiques,» ''Canal'', n° 49, juillet–septembre 1982. *

, «''L'Ange'': Un météore dans le ciel de l'animation,»
La Revue du cinéma
', n° 393, avril 1984. *Youssef Ishaghpour, «Bokanowski: ''L'Ange'',»
Cinéma contemporain: De ce côté du miroir
', Paris, Éditions de la Différence, 1986, p. 318–331. *

, «''L'Ange'',» ''Noise n° 12'', Paris, Maeght Éditeur, 1990. *Jacques Kermabon, «Portrait

,» ''Bref, le magazine du court métrage'', n° 20, février–mars–avril 1994, p. 17–19. *Scott MacDonald, "

on ''The Angel'',"
A Critical Cinema: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers 3
', Oakland,

University of California Press The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by facult ...

, 1998, pp. 262–273. *

Dominique Noguez Dominique Noguez, (12 September 1942 – 15 March 2019) was a French writer. He won the Prix Femina in 1997, for ''Amour noir''. He taught the history of film at the Sorbonne. He was an early defender of Michel Houellebecq Michel Houellebecq ...

,
Éloge du cinéma expérimental
', Classiques de l'Avant-garde, Paris, Éditions Paris Expérimental, 2ème édition, 1999.

External links

* * *
''The Angel''
at ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'
Movies''The Angel''
at the

TCM Movie Database Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is an American movie-oriented pay-TV network owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. Launched in 1994, Turner Classic Movies is headquartered at Turner's Techwood broadcasting campus in the Midtown business district of At ...

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Angel (1982 film), The 1980s avant-garde and experimental films 1980s business films 1982 independent films 1982 films Films about angels Films about death Films about disability Films about education Films about sexuality Films about spirituality Films about the arts Films directed by Patrick Bokanowski Films set in France Films shot in France French avant-garde and experimental films French drama films French independent films French silent feature films Non-narrative films Silent films in color 1980s psychological drama films 1982 directorial debut films 1982 drama films Silent drama films Silent horror films 1980s French films