KENETH ANGER-LUCIFER RISING
The music is eerie and metallic. The film begins in a dark landscape with magma spelling from fish and the ground, it is so dark that you can’t make out anything apart from the sky and the magma and smoke. This creates great emphasis on the magma making it the vocal paint and drawing view as I in to the centre of the screen.
It then zooms into more chasms of flowing magma before a dramatic change in scenery to a calm ocean with the sun shining through the clouds above it, the title of the film rises from the bottom of the screen with flames within the letters. This is the first of many contrasting scenes between dark fiery hellish scenery and the calm waters of the sea.
After the introduction the focus then turns to Isis the Egyptian goddess sitting on a sand dune, she’s watching a crocodile egg hatch. The river Nile in Egypt is famously the home to many crocodiles which terrorise the villagers and settlements around it. It was believed that the Nile River flooded every year filled with the tears of Isis who wept for the death of her lover Osiris. Osiris’s death and rebirth was a critical element of the old Egyptian religion and belief system, it was relived each year through celebrations and rituals.
Isis was an Egyptian goddess she was worshipped as the ideal mother and wife and had strong connections with nature and magic. She was a friend to all manners of Egyptian social classes, slaves, sinners, Artisans and the wealthy, the Aristocrats and rulers. Isis is often depicted as the mother of Horus, the falcon headed deity associated with ruler ship (however some religions show Horus’s mother to be another god named Hathor). Isis is also known as the protector of the dead and the goddess of children. The name Isis means throne. Her headdress is a throne, she was an important representation of the pharaohs power. The Pharaoh was depicted as here child who sat on the throne that she provided for him. So all in all Isis seems to be a God relating to all women in a domestic manner being the ideal female, the wife, the mother and the protector.
Isis picks a wooden staff from a section of old hieroglyphics on the wall, she raises her staff up and down and reveals a giant Cyrus from a statue honouring old temple. She continues to raise her staff in an attempt to communicate with Cyrus, he then reciprocates by reading his staff repeatedly revealing flashes of what seems to be a stormy sky and yellow smoke. Isis in turn raising her staff eventually begins to reveal images of stormy seas and lightning, Cyrus also reveals lightning filled skies. I think the way director has chosen to show the way the communiqué in this way is very clever, the contrast between the calm and steady raising of the staffs and the flashes of powerful imagery are effective in emphasising the images shown.
Osiris the brother and husband of Isis, is most commonly identified as the God of the afterlife, the underworld, and the dead, However he would be more appropriately defined as the God of transition, resurrection, and regeneration. The ancient Egyptians believed that death was in fact transition. They believed that the ka (life-force) left the body at the point of death, their practices are preserving the body and rituals around death further indicated their understanding of the continuance of life. The Ancient Egyptians often made sacrifices to Osiris. Osiris was thought to have risen from the dead, in ancient Egyptian mythology Cyrus was killed by his jealous brother set. Set cut Osiris’s body into many pieces and scattered them around Egypt. Osiris’s wife Isis and son set search all over Egypt to retrieve the pieces and bring him back to life.
this communication between Isis and Osiris seems to be some sort of ritual to awaken Lucifer. In the next scene, we see Lucifer sleeping in a red room waring a long and colourful coat. He appears to be breathing in & out flames. He opened some thought of staff from the red velvet cloth, he walked on through a red door through some more red scenery with a straight face in the stern look his fiercest for motionless it looks as if he may be sleepwalking. He then read feels an Egyptian throne and sits on it then he seems to be throwing beer through to another world. He is then covered in blood as if he had hit someone with the spear, get in the bath and wash the blood off.
Lucifer is most commonly known as the devil in modern times and religions. In ancient Egyptian mythology however Lucifer is not seen in the way he is today but rather an angel, Liberator, guardian or guiding spirit. The Latin word Lucifer translates as “light-bringer” and was applied to the moon. As a noun, it means “morning Star” . Many Christian subgroups view Lucifer as either a fallen angel or a being that was pretending to be an angel, and ended up being cast out of heaven by God.
In this short film it is unclear whether Lucifer is being referred to as the fallen angel of light or as the devil. The imagery of fire, lava, blood, magma ect. It suggests the latter. References to the angel of light could be perceived in the way that sequence of events that comes together to awaken Lillith. To me watching this, This shows that although the title of the film is ‘Lucifer Risising’ the intent of the rituals being performed in the film are actually to awaken Lilith not Lucifer. It seems Isis and Osiris call on Lucifer to help them persue this goal.
After Lucifer throws his spear there is a short scene where Isis is holding a rope leading up to the sky, as if the spear Lucifer threw has pierced the moon, and Isis is positioning it via the rope.
The scene then goes to Lillith who is being awakened from her slumber in a rock tomb to see the moon. There is a montage of scenes of glowing vividly coloured smoke and burning down forests, She proceeds to walk through the forest with destruction following her as she goes. She is dressed in all grey like the stone tomb that she awoke from. She then turns green with what looks like greeny blue smoke around her underneath the head of the Faroe.
Lillith much like Lucifer, is not just defined by just one religion belief system, in some sources she is described as a daemon and in others she is an icon. In Jewish tradition, she is the most notorious Demon, but in some other sources she appears to be the first women created on earth. Lillis’s name derives from the Sumerian word ‘lillitu’ which meant a wind spirit or female Demon. Lillis has also been described as a dark spirit with an on controllable and dangerous sexuality. She is said to have the latest herself with male sperm to create Demon’s. She is believed to be the mother of hundreds of Demons.
If he has in this film she is portrayed as a demon. as destruction follows her around the forest.
An image of Stonehenge appears, which doesn’t really tie in with all the other Egyptian scenery. A woman with blonde hair appears, i don’t know who she is. she may be lillith after all of the grey has been removed. It looks like some sort of ritual there are people walking carrying staffs with fire on them. The blonde haired woman walked up the hill. This lasts for a good few minutes.
She gets to the top and sort of light appears. then there seems to be a lot of different gods strange objects, Egyptian also see the Buddha here. Not sure why this is a part of the film, there is a room with what looks like a king standing in the middle and a man who could possibly be the Magus circling him spraying smoke at him. The round board on the floor since I have all the names of the Egyptian Gods, the magus walks around it quickly flashing between images of him walking across the board and an unsettled ocean, as seen in the images right at the beginning. But this ocean is light as if in daytime whereas the oceans in the starting sequences all seemed to be at night. As he walks faster the sea gets wilder, smoke, stars, and the magus holding something that looks like a sparkler runs around the circle. There is a flash of lightning then the music changes in the sea flashes of Lucifer and destructive naturalistic images such as stormy seas and lightning bolts, and magma spilling out of cousins on the ground.
The Magus is a legendary magician of superhuman powers. The Magus is a common symbol of mythology and religion which spreads across many cultures and timeframes. The Magus appears to be Persian in origin, and one of the traditionally three wise men in the story of the birth of Jesus Christ. The plural word for Magus is Magie. The Meiji is a member of ancient Persian clan specialising in cultic activities. This is where the word magic derived.
We see Lucifer with an Afro, sitting on a throne in what looks like a bathroom shaking his hand which then goes on threw a couple of connecting rooms to another throne where he is yet again shaking his hand, this time shaking cards in his hand. He held a sword to a painting of an old man, there are a lot of scenes of this painting of a man, I’m not sure who he is in this or what his relevance to the film is. Then Lucifer has shown in different costumes walking around different settings, a woman seems to be praying holding some sort of cloth, preforming some sort of ritual I think. She looks upset.
We then returned to Egyptian scenery where Lilith appears to have a flower, she greets Lucifer then goes back to her flower (could be a poppy). The end of the film shows Isis and Osiris walking hand-in-hand through the temple of the gods. Osiris’s fingers look like little pharaohs sarcophagus’s, they then drop into the water. I think this is a symbol of the death of the pharaohs and their passing into the underworld (the underworld in ancient Egyptian refers to the afterlife, not hell) which is overseen by Osiris, who guides them on their journey. There are a few images that are hard to make out which look like a lot of people either dancing or just moving together, and a man who looks like Lucifer waving his arms to create mass destruction. Oddly at the end of the film isis and Osiris summon something which looks a bit like a flying saucer or UFO, which makes the sky flash as if under a strobe light. The film ends with the statues of isis and Osiris sitting side-by-side.
Whoever made this firm obviously done their home with an inch in Egyptian mythology, it is well thought out and cleverly put together, the choice of music adds to the whole atmosphere of the film even metallic sounds clear feeling of uneasiness and confusion much like the film. Some bits seemed out of context such as, the image of Stonehenge, the UFO at the end and the strange painting of an old man. And the flashes of images and sequences of spelling love and magma, lightning and oceanic scenes dragged on a bit. I think they were effective and I understand why they were used in the firm I just think there could be little bit less of them and more emphasis on the gods themselves. But overall the film was a good watch I definitely enjoyed it, I enjoyed it even more so after researching the mythology and ideas connected to it.
