Gefallene Engel

This film attempted to be more than a skin flick by blending some more serious, philosophical elements into basically a story of sexual pursuit. It was not a bad mix - until this 'levitation' scene which I think ruined everything. We all know levitation through mental power is physically impossible so I don't understand why director Brisseau chose to bring it in.

Sandrine, the protagonist in the film, was not happy with conventional sex with her boyfriend, and made an effort to seek pleasure in other ways. So over the course of the film you see beautiful women doing it, and what they did is pleasant to watch. An older man, an ex-physics professor, came into the story and he in some way played a fatherly role to Sandrine, educating her on other aspects of life including the universe and basic physics fundamentals such as the speeds of sound and light. What is good about the story is the interlacing of sex and physics appeared to work in some way too.

In a nutshell I think this film is worth viewing for some of the erotic scenes, and the dialogues between Sandrine and the older, wiser friend. It could have been a much better film if other fine tuning was done and the absurd scene omitted.

"What is life, what is pleasure, what is love?" is asking the man on the bench (Etienne Chicot) towards the end of the film. Really, who can answer? And I would add myself: why people get married? Some only for two months, as another character in the film ? We have many scenes worthy of a porn film with explicit sex, very nice indeed. And we got on the other hand scenes of dialogue between the main character, Sandrine, and all the other characters, in which she tries to find answers to the toughest questions of the humanity. Well played, a little boring, but captivating. Carole Brana, Nadia Chibani and Lise Bellynck, like Three Graces, are very convincing in the roles of three women seeking at all costs the Absolute Ecstasy (through mega-orgasms).

À l'aventure's beginning is pretty dreadful. We meet two female coworkers sitting in a park. One responsible one, the other out of it, who just stares in front of her and doesn't even look her friend in the eyes. The loony one, Sandrine, isn't satisfied in bed by her husband and admits to him that she cheats--by pleasuring herself! The shock! Eventually she quits her job and becomes more adventurous. She picks up a stranger in a café and sleeps with him. He's a psychologist. We get a couple more episodes of her in the park. An older guy sits next to her and starts pondering about life, about the stars, about astrophysics, about life. His thoughts at first are pretty ordinary but become deeper and more interesting in time.

The psychologist introduces Sandrine to a friend/patient who tells them that she likes being slapped on the butt by some guy. It's ecstatic for her. She invites them to a butt slapping session. The guy introduces them to another one his girl, Mina.

The girls who become interested in psychology because of a speech the psychologist gives on hysteria- where repressed psychological events manifest themselves physically, and now want to see the him perform hypnosis on them all. During the session all three girls become aroused and enjoy each other.

Later he does another session on Mina who sees a nun experiencing religious ecstasy and levitating. Now things become interesting...

À l'aventure is the first movie by Brisseau that has an interesting story. But he doesn't take advantage of it. It is still plagued by endless dialog, pointless scenes, behaviors that make no sense. The old guy turns out to have been a physics teacher who went to the East and ended up being a cab driver. He's more or less a guru figure to Sandrine even though he doesn't have anything conclusive to teach.

The issue/question of the female orgasm is something the French can't seem to get their minds around. Here too we are treated to conversations that belong in a movie about victorian times.

Carole Brana who plays Sandrine is just gorgeous in a regular sort of way, not some fake bombshell. The erotic scenes are few, short, and not as stunning as the ones in The Exterminating Angels. Unfortunate since sexual pleasure is at the center of this movie. But in turn, it gives you something to think about. The idea that the search for ultimate pleasure could be related to mysticism is provocative and intriguing. À l'aventure has a fascinating story to tell that deserved a fresher more daring approach than what Brisseau gives us here.

In Europe, we are suffering from the pressure of the Christian upbringing (which actually is a mainstream on a specific direction where the body and the sensations are not important, but only the soul). This movie finds the time to bind the both in a up to date search for meaning, a challenging endeavor, considering the deep routed structure of our culture.

The puritans and the erotic movie lovers alike will see in this movie an erotic exposure with long philosophical intermissions. Beautifully crafted and bringing an equilibrium between two parts, the movie represents an inner search of Sandrine for finding the sense of living, which, as in all hero stories, is not so obvious.

If you see the directors work as a trilogy (first of them being released 2002) and this being the last part of that very loosely based trilogy, then I don't think there is much arguing, that he seems to have saved the best for last. The story seems more coherent, though the trademarks are still there. By that I don't mean the beautiful women, but the talking about everything. Trying to understand feelings or the world in general I suppose.

Not that you'll get answers that are satisfying (no pun intended, other scenes in this might be very satisfying), but the movie tries to get into the head of our main actress. The talk about freedom and boredom/routine may challenge you to think about a few things. Maybe it won't, but that is the clear intention of the director. The supernatural element is kept low this time around, but you'll get a fair share of that too. An (erotic) adventure you may want to take