Angela

"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.

I caught ANGELA on IFC a couple of years ago; it's been in the back of my mind since then. ANGELA is about two young girls who create their own realities in order to deal with the painful reality of their mother's manic depression. It pinpoints and explores the relationship between the interior self and the subjective world--the process by which we create meaning when meaning runs riot in the "objective" world.

Its direction by Rebecca Miller is impeccable -- she coaxes sensitive, complex performances out of each and every character, most notably in the young protagonist and in her even younger sister. Such fine performances are a tribute the script, as well.

From cinematography to art direction to costumes, it manages to convey a truly unified, important, tender and thought-provoking vision... The world would be a better place with more films like this one. Thank you, Ms. Miller!

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.