Les anges exterminateurs (2006) Reviews

• Heaven hates a doofus

  jcherr2008-03-03

  As nearly as I could tell, this film is about the heavy cosmic price that's extracted (only sometimes, unfortunately) from the clueless. The film's filmmaker, Francois, wants to make a film about orgasms. He doesn't want porn stars because they might fake orgasms, so he goes out and finds, uh, "real" actresses. Because he's clueless, Francois doesn't notice that his actresses, not to mention his wife and just about everybody else, are waving enormous red flags, along with sirens and flashing danger lights, in his direction. And, because he's an eedgit, Francois eventually has very bad things happen to him, but not as bad as they could be because he's such a nice eedgit that even one of his exterminating angels cuts him some ill-advised slack. Meanwhile, around him swirl a variety of pretentiously mysterious signs and apparitions that describe the amount of effort that heaven, or whatever, is spending to demolish Francois. Not least of these signs are the cryptic messages that mirror those sent via radio to the French Resistance during WW2. Do these signify that the relationship between the sexes is an undeclared war? Who knows. Cocteau used them much better in Orphee. However, and this is a big however, this film has some very hot women having sex with each other. French (or Belgian) women -- yum! So there it is -- a pretentious film about the downfall of a bonehead, filled to the brim with luscious women. Your call.

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• What Eyes Wide Shut should have been

  kazou2006-11-11

  This is one of those movies that you love or hate, but that moves you anyway. It has so many details, so many reactions of the characters so the pleasures game that the director wants to play that is difficult for me to treat the film only in only direction or conclusion. As you may have read before, it tells us about a film director in his forties that is shooting an erotic scene and he discovers how the actress enjoys breaking the taboo of masturbation in front of a camera. She tells him how intense and marvelous that feeling was, but after a time they meet by random and she tells him he traumatized her... now the director is interested about what crosses to someone's mind when breaking a rule himself has imposed. I will not say this is a psychologist study, nor a pornographic film although the extremely explicit content, but it is such and intense and dark look about how we can become blind by our passions instead of use our head and the advices we receive from our friends (wife and grandmother in the film). And we all know how naturally and honestly french talk about feelings, which make the film believable. For me, it was a whole experience and, with the Danish film Princess, and maybe the Swish Snow White and Brannagh's The Magic Flute, the only worthy film of the Sevilla 06 film festival.

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• sets out to capture the beauty of the female nude during orgasm

  christopher-underwood2008-01-30

  This film is nothing like as meaningful as I am sure the makers would have wished but neither is it tosh. Brisseau tells of a director who sets out to capture the beauty of the female nude during orgasm. Not interested in the porn actresses' rehearsed turns he seeks young women not used to performing the act so that he might thereby capture the 'mystical moments'. He also proposes that if she transgresses the norm she will more likely reach the maximum sensations. Hence, we get masturbation in a restaurant, in a hotel room with the door open, with other girls etc. I do not particularly take issue with any of this but I just don't think it's particularly profound. It is a slight theory which if proved does not really lead us anywhere. Where it does lead us of course is to the frank and pretty explicit presentation of some pretty erotic scenes. Not all bad then! Simple enough to start with this gradually turns into a melodrama involving the director's wife, the girls' partners and even the police and the ghost of his grandmother. Gradually we seem to loose sight of what seemed the film's only premise, but who knows maybe Brisseau really was making a film about the nature of love and how men and women are affected so differently.

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• Pointless and Pretentious Eroticism and Voyeurism

  claudio_carvalho2009-03-24

  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")

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• Not a bad moment, though...

  doctorrugger2006-09-24

  I guess you've got a number of French writers at IMDb, and the global rating of "Les Anges" is good (6,6 for 19 votes : it's better than most French films I guess). Nevertheless none dared to write even a brief comment on this "thing". I will try to. If you don't like watching young, very desirable, girls playing with themselves under the table of a fancy restaurant, this film is not for you. If you're not attracted by beautifully filmed saphic loves in a hotel corridor, this film is not for you. That should leave plenty people as potential public but has the film a point in itself, or is it only a gorgeous sex show ? The answer is complex for Brisseau never hide that his main interest is filming female orgasm, true or perfectly played. He was jailed for having "forced" actresses to masturbate in front of his camera on the pretext that they were casted for his next film. Unfortunately, all the girls were not kept for the cast...and some sued him . Les Anges is therefore a pro domo plea where Brisseau explains that his objectives were of clearly artistic nature, and not mere voyeurism . This debate is at the center of the film, more or less drawn into a ludicrous scenario, and deserves all our attention. Anyway, I shall remember "les Anges" as some of the "hottest" films ever, and that's certainly worth the price of a ticket.

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