A cathedral spaceship touches down on a ruined future Earth (in scenes lifted from the 1985 animated feature Angel’s Egg; a collaboration between director Mamoru Oshii and Yoshitaka Amano) as a young angel who has laid an egg is given a lecture from her bro… at least it all makes perfect, reasonable sense…
Then we cut to some live-action antics as two gas-masked attired dudes wander a wasteland. They walk and talk (and talk), and occasionally get menaced… then a dude has visions of the animated fracas from the beginning (but there’s a live-action version of the lil’ angel)…
The biggest hurdle with In the Aftermath is that the live-action stuff, while taking place in a suitably grim and industrial environment, can’t hold a candle to the beauty and weirdness of the jarringly out of place animated sequences (which the filmmaker’s try in vain to make fit into whatever narrative they have created).
So the feature is somewhat interesting, if unsuccessful, but how do the extras fare on this Arrow video Blu-ray release? Well, we at least get some explanation as to how this whole mess came about thanks to interviews with producer Tom Dugan, and actor Tony Markes. Also included are an appreciation of Angel’s Egg courtesy of author Andrew Osmond, a still and poster gallery, a reversible sleeve featuring artwork by Corey Brickley, and a booklet featuring an essay on the film by film critic and author Jon Towlson.
In other words, this is like a student film sandwiched between a great anime, that in the end leaves you just wanting to watch the original version of Angel’s Egg… but that being said, it was an ambitious attempt, and those that have seen the original source material may find interest within In the Aftermath.
