Les anges exterminateurs

French film makers are prone to mixing banal philosophy and soft core porn. Their tiresome philosophies of pleasure are ALWAYS mere justification for voyeurism and mental masturbation for the predominantly male viewers, some of whom evidently hope that their wives and girlfriends will be stimulated too. They can thus escape the horrors of monogamy, if only in their minds. This transparently false justification is the essence of kitsch. On an intellectual level this film is no better than Exit To Eden, which also justified voyeurism and diluted forms of perversion with the same pretentious twaddle. But at least we are spared from seeing men in G strings and Rosie O'Donnell in a black corset and fishnet stockings. The borrowings from Orphee are obvious. Death is a sinister beauty, corrupt police do her work, and coded radio messages appear at random. Even the title borrows from Bunuel. However, little is done with these elements. They are tiny bits of brain candy for the critics, like finding Waldo. We do see some pretty girls, but they are mostly insane. BOTTOM LINE: For men who need a jump start.

The movie has an interesting theme, unfortunately it doesn't really make the most of it. And I'm not talking about nudity or sexuality here (plenty of that, although it is more for the lover of lesbian eroticism). We also have a problem with acting in this and believability, if you actually care for that.

It might be you only want to watch this for apparent reasons which is fine enough and as said, the movie does work. But if you are out for a coherent story, you almost get it here. With the movie following in the footsteps of the directors prior movie (this being called "part 2" of a loosely strung trilogy), it doesn't have the same characters or anything, but it does seem to have strong roles for women again. Although in this case a man has the lead role

The French filmmaker François (Frédéric van den Driessche) decides to make a movie about female pleasure and break of taboos in sex. He interviews many young women about their secret fantasies and proposes auditions, with each woman naked and masturbating in front of a camera until they reach orgasm. He finally casts Julie (Lise Bellynck), the unstable Charlotte (Maroussia Dubreuil) and the compulsive liar Stéphanie (Marie Allan) to the lead roles and creates a sexual tension among them in a threesome. The relationship with the three actresses affects his marriage, while two fallen angels and the spirit of his protective grandmother follow him.

"Les Anges Exterminateurs" is a pointless and pretentious soft-porn with lots of eroticism and voyeurism. The movie is pure exploitation, with the exposition of the gorgeous unknown naked actresses, and disguised of "art-movie" with the beautiful cinematography and the omnipresence of two fallen angels which existence is never explained and the ghost of the director's grandmother. It is funny to see intellectual explanations to such a silly and messy story of female orgasm. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Anjos Exterminadores" ("Exterminating Angels")

Sex is universal to every art in every time, in every culture. It's universal because it's as animal as every man is. So, no theme is more richly treated, and more thoroughly investigated as sex. That raises the bar of demand, in other words, if you want to do anything interesting that concerns sex you have only two choices:

-either you do something that, although not original updates somethings that had been previously done;

-you find any dark corner of sex, usually tied to other equally fascinating worlds, of the human mind or such; this film does nothing in any of the 2 options. it's as dull as its writer sounds. This i say taking in consideration the lines, and an interview i saw on the DVD extras.

Apparently this film was made as some sort of provocation against some sex related charges related to this director's previous film. I think he might see this as an exorcism or something that could be mapped into the realms of the "art" world. Some personal exploitation of the limits of voyeurism in sex; a man who studies female orgasm by watching (and filming) it. I suppose later in the process of developing this, Brisseau himself understood how thin the whole thing was, so he placed a couple of Wenders' borrowed angels, to add a layer of mysticism to the whole watching game and, i suppose, so we could identify with the more active angel, as a voyeur of the voyeur situations.

This could actually work, but only if the director was more interested in making a film, rather than looking like he masters the inner depth of the female orgasm. As it is, this is a shameless depiction of the female body, some women are really and genuinely appealing, but the whole work is just dishonest. I really would prefer to have this made into a softcore exploitative film, than this annoying piece. Anything Brass or Franco do is better than this.

My opinion: 1/5

http://www.7eyes.wordpress.com

I feel that I should watch the film again (which I will not, because I don't want to, because it was very disturbing, and although it was, I admit, exciting, physically, and I am definitely a woman who loves men, I don't want to see it again because it made me sad, disconsolate) before I give my point of view, which, by the way, I have never done before in this venue, but-- Postsefalu is correct: "the camera-eye is registering: passion,loneliness, madness and ... love." I saw this movie yesterday and what registered most with me today is the fact that the women were in love with the man who directed them. As was his wife. He should have taken the love he was offered. He lost everything because he was trying to turn it into something else--art? But I know nothing about art.