Angela

This is an amazing if bizarre film. The acting of the two little girls is superb and far surpasses those of child actors in big budget studio films.

I've read some disturbing posts accusing this film of child exploitation, particularly in the use of nudity. The nudity in this film is as innocent as a baby on a bearskin rug, but too many narrow-minded morons with internet access confuse this with pornography.

The use of nudity in this film is a bit artsy, but very natural and represents the only beauty in these girls lives. Swimming nude with their mother the only time in their lives they've experienced joy. But the religious views of Angela makes her see herself as sinful, and her sister as unclean. This film could have been improved by more nudity to show how this budding adolescent views her own body. She already has a negative view of sexuality. But it's an issue no American filmmaker would dare explore, and I don't blame them.

This is where the film becomes a near-satire of the dangers of blind faith in fear-based religions. This view of sin and uncleanliness leads Angela down a dangerous path but in her innocence, she doesn't view her actions as having negative consequences on her sister.

Without giving any spoilers, Ellie experiences true freedom at the end only by experiencing, in the director's words, "an intense emotional experience."

The only negative comment I have is I already know ahead of time how society views films of this nature. I'm surprised to see that few religious nuts who have seen this film never recognized it as a criticism of their faith. No one seems to be able to get over the sight of a naked baby to be able to do that.

tlyoung88

The ten year-old Angela (Miranda Stuart Rhyne) and her little sister Ellie (Charlotte Blythe) move to an old house in the countryside with her parents Mae (Anna Thomson) and Andrew (John Ventimiglia). Their mother has mental illness and has just left an institution and her husband tries to keep the dysfunctional family together. Angela is an imaginative disturbed girl that might have inherited the illness of her mother and is obsessed by purification to get rid of her sins; and has visions of the fallen angel Lucifer and the Virgin Mary. She leads her little sister in her paranoia and uses a circle of toys and dolls to protect them against evil. They have a crazy neighbor that Angela believes is an angel and she asks the woman how to find the way to heaven. When Mae returns to the institution, Angela becomes uncontrollable in her quest to heaven.

"Angela" is a weird and bizarre film about mental illness and religious paranoia. Angela seems to have inherited the mental disorder of her mother, having vision of Lucifer and Virgin Mary, and fantasizing purification processes to cleanse the sins to reach heaven. The worst is that she drags her little sister in her fantasy. The tragic conclusion is expected. It is impressive the number of times that the microphone is visible. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): 'Angela: Nas Asas da Imaginação' ("Angela: In the Wings of the Imagination")

After a slow start this film was like throwing a pebble into still waters and watching the ripples widen. Written, produced and directed by Rebecca Miller with insight, sensitivity and humour there are strong overtones of the magical and the sinister, the angelic and the devilish and performances from the two child actors which are entrancing. The sisters, aged nine and six, create a world of fantasy which is partly induced by longing for a happy family life and partly by a desperate desire by the older girl to find salvation through spirituality. Their mother, a pale and ravaged shadow of her former self, with distinct similarities to Marilyn Monroe (who was married to Arthur Miller, Rebecca Miller's father) barely notices the girls as they drift in and out of her line of vision and her drunken haze. Their father is totally focused on her unpredictable behaviour and his job in a car scrap yard. There is a strong sexual frisson between the two. When the film starts we see the family move in an old pick- up truck to a rambling and abandoned house with metal beds and dirty curtains. Through a grill in the floor the girls watch their parents making love below, a scene of mystifying and disturbing violence. "It looks as if it hurts", the older sister says to her little sister when she tries to prepare her for when she has to kiss boys and "do it" in order to have a baby. The little sister is, as is the case with siblings, in awe of her big sister and hangs on her every word, believing the increasingly bizarre and black rituals that she is told she must perform in order to "Go into the Big Nothing". There are terrifying moments, funny moments and wonderful cameos - like the next door neighbour who sleep walks every night and looks for a letter in her mail box, always dressed in her nightie and with curlers in her hair. There is a wonderful scene of a baptism in the nearby lake and a night time visit to a fairground where a young man with dangerous intentions almost gets his way. I found it riveting, worrying, delightful, believable and a completely brilliant portrayal of the power of the imagination that children have, which is sadly so little encouraged.

"Angela" is a movie that has a not entirely unsuccessful stab at depicted the world through the eyes of a child. However, it never succeeds at keeping our attention for very long. It's like listening to a rambling storyteller who occasionally stumbles upon something interesting, but most of the time, you can safely tune him or her out without missing anything.

I admit to being perplexed and distracted by the movie's boom mic being so often visible. I couldn't understand how a movie so beautifully shot and with actors like Frances Conroy, Vincent Gallo and John Ventimiglia could make such a basic mistake. Apparently, (as IMDB tells us), this fault was not with the filmmakers, but the distributors. The movie was supposed to be shown in letterbox format, which would have obscured the equipment. When transferred to DVD, the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen were removed.

I'm glad to hear this wasn't the director's mistake, but still, it is very, very noticeable.

The plot is about a young girl whose parents are struggling to deal with the wife's mental illness. Left largely to fend for themselves, the girls attempt to "enter Heaven", interpreting strangers as either good or bad angels there to help them on their journey.

The movie reminded me a bit of that Swedish masterpiece, "Children's Island", but it's not nearly as good as that one, despite strong performances and beautiful photography. It doesn't bring you into the child's world as completely as that movie does, and it doesn't captivate you half as much.

Rebecca Miller's haunting tale of a young girl driven by her religious obsessions into a frightening world of hallucinogenic images and superstitious delusion. There are touching performances by the two principal girl actors, Miranda Stuart Rhyne and Charlotte Eve Blythe. Rhyne, in particular, is engaging as the young protagonist caught in a heavenly struggle between good and evil to save her mentally ill mother. She convincingly portrays Angela as a determined and feisty but naive and vulnerable child in equal measure; someone who is headstrong but literally open to abuse.

There is a fine director's commentary on the DVD narrated by Miller exploring the themes and motivations that went into the making of the film.