Kleine Engel, kleine Haie

Marie is a fourteen year-old who behaves as though she will never reach fifteen, at least without becoming pregnant. Her sultry scowl and nubile body attract all who encounter her, including an American Naval detachment. But her true love turns out to be someone who is more disturbed than her. Orso weaves through the film like a mosquito hovering over a potential meal. The beginning of this film also is the ending, and it's at times difficult to follow the director's flashbacks. The juxtaposition of the race drivers is over-done. We get the idea initially that life for this film is indeed in the fast lane and will never pull over to the right lane. However the performances are fine with Vahina Giocante (Marie) exhibiting (but tastefully) not only a beautiful body, but a talent as well. Frederic Miagra (Orso) plods his way through the film with a brooding appeal, only fleetingly losing his expression of despair.

In the edenic French seaside seen in this film, I wonder if the American Naval men in this film are symbolic of the "conquering Americans" who run the danger of overwhelming the "innocent beauty" that are other nations. I might be reading too much into it, but when you think about it, they could have been any group of soldiers/sailors from any country. Imposing male lust knows no national boundaries.

I must confess that I read several reviews of the film before actually seeing it, and despite a mixed greeting I tried to keep my mind open to it. It is a beautiful film.

The shots, unlike many of our formula movies, are not centered directly on what can be called a plot. But the quick snaps of seemingly unrelated material when taken as a whole becomes the entire atmosphere of the film and if those quick shots are so beautifully crafted as this then you have created a beautiful piece.

I digress, the film itself may be too deep for us Americans. most Americans when they sit down to watch a foreign film expect depth but in our V8 world we sometimes feel entitled to a clearly defined plot and story. "Whats all this about boats and a party!? What's this got to do with anything??" I can hear my contemporaries cry to which I can only answer emote don't analyze.

I won't compare the film to any others all films are works of art and deserve to be treated as such if you truly wish to recognize them. Marie Baie des Anges, with its haunting interconnectedness or perhaps disconnectedness weaves with beautiful images to create a truly beautiful film.

This movie kind of fits into this unofficial French genre which might be called the "French-jailbait-on-the-beach" film. This loose genre could include classy Eric Rohmer films like "Claire's Knee" and "Pauline at the Beach", the good but very depressing female coming-of-age films of Catherine Breillat like "36 Fillete" and "A moi souer", as well as enjoyable trash like "L'anne des medusas" (you could even throw "Swimming Pool" in here maybe). This movie is about a homeless teenage French girl who hangs around an American military base as kind of an amateur prostitute (it occurred to me watching this that one reason so many people hate America might be because our military uses the whole world as their whorehouse). She meets up with a psychotic French boy her own age and helps him steal a gun from the base, at which point the plot takes a rather implausible turn into serial murder.

This movie is not as sophisticated as a Rohmer film nor is it as squirm-inducingly realistic as a Breillat film. It kind of resembles "L'annee des medusas", but where that movie was exploitative trash from the get-go (featuring a somewhat older and very naked Valerie Kaprisky), this movie tries to be a realistic teenage slice-of-life for awhile but goes seriously off the rails with the serial murder plot. Like a lot of French movies it also suffers from a terminal case of pretentiousness. As with other films of its type, however, it does have some great cinematography of the beautiful Baie des Anges (where is that anyway?). These films would all make great advertisements for France's tourism board--if not for all the scary teenage French girls.

The chaos of children running the world is a disturbing and possibly accurate portrayal of these characters' view of the world. Each is stealing, cheating and manipulating to survive, except that they don't know they're not surviving, just wild animals. The American sailors are punks, and it's a crime that they are the closest thing to authority figures in the story. Some characters are just brutal, or maybe a bit flat.

Marie is living for the moment, oblivious of her aimlessness. Desperate for love, she knows only sex. Orso, also desperate for love, doesn't know how to get anything without just taking it. Because he equates love with giving things, he returns to his violent nature eventually. Neither of the ill-fated couple are not prepared to succeed. These lead characters are undesirable, but I still loved them with all of their failings. I found the story unsettling and thought provoking.

Striking scenery and soulful, well-crafted acting drew me into the film completely. The clear beauty of the land and sea is visually stunning. It makes you want to go and experience it. Marie's gentle, natural beauty and wide eyed innocence (or calm?) are validation of Vahina Giocante as a star. She's the beautiful girl next door, the one you understand and don't understand at the same time, but love to be around. Orso's brooding and watching from a distance absolutely demonstrate Frederic Malgras' understanding of an outcast who finds the one thing he wants most of all. A part of me relates to him. If these two stars have that much range, why aren't they in more films?