Jeanskynebu
the audience applauded
Brainsbell
The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.
Portia Hilton
Blistering performances.
Dana
An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.
Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)
"Black Angel" is a 27-minute movie from 1980, so this one is already almost 40 years old. It was written and directed by Roger Christian, a 2-time Oscar nominee in art direction and he won the trophy once for his work on George Lucas' Star Wars. But this one here has really not much in common with this saga, except the fact that they are both fantasy films. This one here has a lot more to do with knights and princesses than with extraterrestrials as we follow the ways of a man named Maddox and what happens when a supernatural appearance saves him from drowning. The consequence is that he goes up against a dark knight (no pun intended!) and the outcome is somewhat interesting for a change as an ending like this is nothing you see in medieval films very frequently. If you can call this one medieval, that is. It's probably set in a different time and space perhaps. Anyway, Christian was a much more prolific filmmaker than most people know, but honestly judging from this one here I am not too mad that I am not really aware of his work either. The film had some lengths, even for a movie under half an hour, and is never as artistically impactful as I would have expected it looking at who's the man in charge. Story-wise, there is also nothing really memorable except the ending. I read that this film here may be turned into a new movie at some point in the near future, but it's all very vague. Cannot say yet if I have an interest in checking that one out if it does. Christian is still making films these days, so there is a possibility he could be directing here too. Being in the mid-70s should not keep him away. Back to this one here, I thought the uninteresting is more frequent than the interesting eventually and that's why I have to give it a thumbs-down. Not recommended.
Mike 8-{
34 years ago I went to the cinema to see one of the big box office films of the day. Back then they still had a short film before the main feature. I saw something that day which has stuck with me through the years. It made a huge impression on me but I couldn't remember what it was called or which film I had seen it with. There were just images in my mind, a knight slowly falling through black water, and the feeling that I had seem something special that day. It turns out the big box office film I saw after the short was The Empire Strikes Back. The short film itself was Black Angel but I didn't know it until the evening of 27th Feb 2014. Then I was lucky enough to be in the audience, including other folks like me who had seen it and had it lodged in their minds for 34 years, for the screening at the Glasgow Film Festival. I finally got to see it again and on the big screen to boot. To most it is probably of no interest but it is a cracking little mystical tale of a knight on a quest to save a maiden in distress. I would like to thank Andy Bryan, for tracking down the film, and Roger Christian, the writer and director, for giving me the chance to see it again. I don't know what you will think of it but it is a lost treasure found for me.
jonathanmelia
Great stuff this. I kept going back to see "Empire" as much for this short as for the film itself. (Tony Vogel's kids went to my school: I even remember having cello lessons with his daughter Anna...) Loads of fog, castles, an ethereal maiden and a bizarre "grim reaper" type figure watching over her. "Spare the child!!! Take my life instead!!!" Can't wait to see it again. It also had good music, trying to emulate "gothic" style voices, the kind you associate with the Hyperion music label. I was 12 and a half years old, and simply couldn't get it out of my mind. Even Excalibur, which came out exactly one year later, just seemed gratuitous and silly by comparison. I really hope the master is found so a DVD transfer can be made: let me know when it happens....
sword_of_conan
The best short film that i can remember was this little gem.Beautifully shot and very moody, this flick was very interesting to the eye, as well as having a simple, but effective storyline. This without a doubt should be released to the public in the form of a collection of other shorts or just by itself on DVD.
