Fallen Angel

Directed by James Harris

2024

“A lost soul seeks redemption”

The directorial debut from actor and singer-songwriter James Harris, Fallen Angel is a 5-minute short film from the West Midlands that explores life, death and perhaps also life-after-death.

Starting with a dark tunnel with light at the end, rather than a move into the afterlife, this opening seems to portray an angel traversing the opposite direction arriving on earth.

So rather than an ethereal bridge to heaven, our location is our own urban sprawl as a man (entity?) in a suit stands amongst the very-human concrete structures whilst sporting a pair of almighty white wings. A great sweeping shot and a really majestic visual metaphor from the outset.

Quickly cutting to the angel waking up, he rises amongst the dark canals and roads, staring plaintively at a world strange to him. An echoing, and Godly, voiceover arrives a minute or so later which attempts to poetically give context to what we are seeing. But the short very much keeps this ambiguous and open to interpretation.

The music is a funky mix of electronica and music sequencer but I honestly didn’t get the feeling it really fit with the world. The synth genre could remain but the style felt far too positive and more akin to something you’d find on a YouTube compilation montage of “kind strangers”. So a bit too jarring for the subject matter and the “are we fallen angels” theme.

Especially noticeable at the start, some silence could have gone a long way to begin with and this small change in tone could have built some suspense and mystery to the circumstances we are viewing.

The idea however is solid though. An angel amongst a decaying city - the filmmaker uses colossal Midlands motorway icon Spaghetti Junction as its main location - is a superb motif worth exploring as we see two contrasting concepts in opposition. Yet our lead (the director) is also seen kicking his heels and climbing (rather ungracefully) over metal railings. Somewhat taking the shine off this angelic fable.

A strong idea gets combined with a really fantastic location but for me that music sadly doesn’t fit and some of the narrative poetry could have been expressed in more depth with some added visual cues.

That said, Fallen Angel ends as a very good idea that, although needs a bit more working on, provides a strong basis for the filmmaker to “develop the divine” in his future projects.

★★★

3 / 5

Michael Sales