Black Angel (1980)

Brilliant and touching

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Unlike many of the other reviewers, I had not seen this before. The short is quite light on plot, Sir Maddox comes home, only to hear that many are dead due to raiders and disease. He heads out after these raiders and has some "supernatural" experiences.The cinematography in this short is great, as is to be expected as the director was most known for his cinematography work. The short does not rely on characters as much as it does mood, ambiance, and so on. I'm sure it was nice to see this in cinemas because of this. The costumes are nice as well.The story is sadly not that interesting. Almost like a fairytale or a legend, it ends without really going anywhere. Things happen, but not memorable or that interesting.

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.

*THIS POST CONTAINS POSSIBLE SPOILERS* I remember watching this short in the cinema supporting The Empire Strikes Back. Although a little fuzzy now after a quarter of a century, I seem to remember the main character, some kind of knight, had a horse called Richard, and was wearing a large heavy helmet which didn't do him much good when he fell into a stretch of water and couldn't get it off. Before he drowns he manages to free the helmet from his head and scrambles back onto dry land and thus go's off on some quest involving a girl. Ultimately he ends up fighting his evil nemesis and during the battle is returned to the water to drown wearing the same helmet. I think the film is trying to suggest the knight did drown but was hallucinating during the event, hence the quest.I may be wrong so lets hope it appears on DVD sometime soon!

A can't really add very much to what others have written about the plot, except for my very vague memory of what may be the final scene. For that reason, please do not read on unless you want to see a possible spoiler! (assuming I've remembered it right!).SPOILER! SPOILER! SPOILER! SPOILER! I saw this just once 27 years ago and I've never forgotten it, even though I couldn't remember the title again for a long time (until today!). A fantasy set in medieval times, it had the same kind of realistic but romanticised "feel" of something like John Boorman's Excalibur or the Robin of Sherwood TV series, with the use of dark filters to make the film moody and atmospheric. The "knight" (presumably the Black Angel of the title?) was, I think, dressed a bit like the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail ("It's just a graze!"), with one of those archetypal flat-topped helmets with an eye slit, and black armour. I think he may have been on some sort of "quest", although my memory is so vague that I may be confusing it with Arthurian stories like Excalibur.Unlike other people, I remember seeing the film as a support to the ecological horror film Prophecy (1979). Remembering the title of that film (Prophecy) and the year it was made led me eventually to work out that this film's title was Black Angel, released the same year. Presumably, it made sufficient impact for it to be used to support The Empire Strikes Back the following year? The only scene I seem to remember from it is what I think may have been the ending. The "knight" is killed (maybe blown up somehow or shot by arrows? - I said my memory of the film was sketchy!), and after his body flies through the air (in slow motion, probably) it ends up sinking to the bottom of a lake..? That may be completely wrong, but as I say this is a 27 year old memory! A similar but expanded story set in the same period and filmed in the same style might have made a great feature film.This is one film I would love to watch again to see if it was as awesome as I remember, but being a short it seems unlikely, unless it's perhaps been posted on the internet somewhere..? Well worth 25 minutes of your time if you ever get the opportunity.