Angel (Neil Jordan, 1982)

"Angel" is Neil Jordan's directional debut, starring Stephen Rea. Rea plays Danny, a saxophonist who witnesses the murder of his manager by Irish loyal paramilitaries —the political references are almost inexistent, but the context screams their identity—. The night in which the crime is concealed, Danny had been playing with his band in a bar and met a deaf and mute girl (Veronica Quilligan) with whose innocence he falls in love. The girl is also murdered when being seen by the killers. Following the shock, the saxophonist falls into a spiral of confusion which sets him apart from Deirdre (Honor Heffernan), the singer of the band. Eventually, his obsession with the murder leads him to chase the perpetrators and turn into a murderer himself.

The 1982 film is a poem dedicated to a time and place which defined the director, together with an almost surreal story through which we follow Danny's downfall. The plot is framed by coastal scenes in Portstewart and interiors in Dublin and Bray which are carefully decorated. It is impossible not to stare at the wallpaper and the tapestries of Danny's aunt, as well as the collections of photographs, windows and the light in which the sequences are bathed. Though the storyline can be predictable, the characters are memorable and the photography and mise en scene, unique. 

Neil Jordan has a perceptible identity that, together with determination, enabled him to create a beautiful piece with a minuscule budget. He managed to keep me interested throughout the hour and a half it lasts in spite of the lack of dialogues in many sequences. The lines were pragmatic, full of dry humour, and every actor was proficient in their roles. Stephen Rea's character has an unwillingness for life that is depressing and seductive at the same time, irrevocably grabbing my attention. I understand him even when he becomes a killer, the same way I utterly discerned the reasons behind "Taxi Driver"'s very own Travis Bickle.

I felt nostalgia for a decade that I did not live in thanks to the closeness of the concert scenes and the comings and goings of Danny in town. The last lines, when Danny shoots a man from the mafia behind the initial murder and a policeman approaches him, are hard to forget: 

Bloom: Maybe you're better off forgetting.

Danny: *You* asked me to remember.

Bloom: I know. I know. But it's deep. And it's everywhere.

Danny: What is?

Bloom: Evil.

The scene that really stayed with me is the sequence that precedes the killing. Here is when Danny meets the deaf-mute girl. At first, he dances with her and realises she is unusual when she caresses his face without saying a word to him seconds after they have met. It takes him a whole monologue after the concert, inside some drainage pipes, to figure out what her condition is. The "conversation" is magical to the audience because of a great irony: the deaf-mute girl seems more in control of her life than the saxophonist, who since the beginning seems to be a doubtful character. Then, when Danny's monologue ends—he keeps talking to her even when he figures out that she cannot hear him—, the shooting begins and she cannot perceive that either, so she goes out of the pipe and immediately gets killed. After the magnetism of the scene that they share, marked by the juxtaposition of maturity and naiveness of the girl, death is a cruel choice. It marks Stephen Rea's character, giving him a motivation that he grasps halfway through the film and makes his. 

"Angel" is a captivating film which has the best out of Scorcese's first movies and a mind-blowing passion for detail. It shouldn't leave you indifferent. ⧫⧫⧫/⧫⧫⧫⧫⧫