Angela

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.

Beautifully shot, and miller does a wonderful job of creating a sense of unease and tension throughout, which makes everything unpredictable and terrifying all at once. I love how it approaches the mental illness aspect and like most movies I've seen recently, doesn't treat it as a horror device. It presents it as it really would be, a person slowly slipping away from your eyes, which in my opinion is more terrifying than any horror monster ever could be. The devil constantly tempted her, and her view that she must clean herself of her sins to reach serenity like her mother wasn't able to reach (her saying to vincent gallo baptist "do it again" during her baptism). It is that childhood innocence that this movie understands so well, which ultimately leads to even more hurt for angela. It also doesn't take this poverty angle and make everything disgusting as a result, everything feels real and lived in, and there is always a feeling like dirt is always on the floor. One of the few movies that understand small-town poverty, and how they go to religion for any sense of help or comfort. Doesn't shy away from saying that mental illness will slowly eat away the people you love, you are next, and there is nothing you can do to stop it.

ANGELA whisks the viewer away into the nightmare of a young girl threatened with the loss of her very world through the crumbling psychology of her mother. Rebecca Miller's film brings thoroughly to bloom the essence of a dangerous imagination which plays out like a Greek tragedy in the lives of Angela and her little sister on a quest to save themselves from the devil. The devil himself white as chalk and winged appears to warn them that he soon will claim the family. A helpless father cannot bind together the broken bridges and fallen stars of his wife, a Marilyn Monroe-like singer who can only perpetuate the failures of her life, spreading them like termites to envelope any stability her family could muster. It seems then to ANGELA that she in her innocence must bear that burden and find by way of a stray horse a black cat who she believes give her messages to where she can find the holy grail of her family's salvation, and this to a desperate end.

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.

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")