Exterminating Angels [2007] [DVD]

I thought this was a decent film and I understand where the director was getting at. It's not easy to talk about and can be read on different levels. It presents itself as a fairly straightforward, commercial film with all the necessary ingredients to summon a huge, mainly masculine, crowd. "The Exterminating Angels" tells the story of filmmaker François (Frédéric van den Driessche) who aims to make a film exploring female eroticism, during pre-production he put two women, Charlotte (Maroussia Dubreuil) and Julie (Lise Bellynck) to the test by filming them have sex, then a third joins, waitress Stéphanie (Marie Allan) in and they develop a close sexual bond. So much so that they begin to enjoy the thrill of having sex in front of François who they grow to covet. The relationship becomes dangerous when François discovers that temptation, jealousy and lust puts his film in jeopardy.

First of all, some may call me ignorant but I have no idea what the meaning of the angles are in this film? The symbolism slipped by me. They watch over the filmmaker and occasionally influence situations, other than that it's a mystery. Perhaps it's a statement about those that watch over us may also have the power to mess with us? Furthermore this film is an incredibly male-centred fantasy piece that pushes the envelope. It's a total "I wish" movie to see a bunch of ladies get it on? It seemed like Brisseau was playing out his fantasy by proxy through the character François or to a certain extent using the character as a means to justify what he asks women to do for his films. Some may call it sophisticated art while others porn but the bottom line is that the film does features some erotic scenes, many of which are border-line porn. Nothing to the extremes as seen in the tastefully bad "Baise-Moi" (2000) hardcore porn masquerading as art-house cult cinema, this film is at least tasteful in it's depictions of lesbian interactions, well as tasteful as they can be anyway.

I also found the film to be incredibly slow to an artful degree, if it wasn't for the occasional bouts of sex that broke up the mundane and occasionally pretentious dialogue this would have been a totally mind-numbing experience. I even felt that the performances by the young female cast members to be totally void of any emotion even when engaging with themselves it was like watching robots programmed to perform a specific function, this film is supposed to be about exploring female eroticism (at least that's what the character of François was going for) yet I felt that these girls didn't connect with one another. What I did like was the film's noir tone and visual style is rather impressive and the film's themes become somewhat clearer when looked at in this light, the manipulative undertones surface and the complexity of this film's core is revealed, however at the end of the day "The Exterminating Angels" is too art house for the art house crowd and not explicit enough for the porno crowd...it lays in a strange middle ground.

Exterminating Angels is Jean-Claude Brisseau's second film in the trilogy (Chose Secretes, A L'Aventure) exploring societal and sexual taboo's. Director Francois (Frederic van den Driessche) becomes obsessed by the mysteries surrounding women and sexual pleasure, who is watched over by two fallen angels. The film shows how sex often leads to emotional attachments and bonds, that can not be set aside by a film maker making a supposed academic film about sex (a theme that John Cameron Mitchell explores in 'Gifted and Challenged' a documentary about the making of Shortbus).

The sex scenes between the actresses are very explicit, but you can n't make a film about sex in this way without this kind of sexual content, but it's the manner that the film effects his relationship with his partner and starts to take over his whole life, becoming much like any other addiction, which fascinates. Like a lot of films men make about exploring sexual taboos, it can be read as a male fantasy, but like many films it takes a leap of imagination by the viewer.

The scenes with the Fallen Angels did not work for me; what did they mean? I'll let you watch it and decide. If your interesting in erotic films, then their are better films than Exterminating Angels, but if you're interested in a film exploring how obsession with sexual pleasure and breaking taboos can take over and destroy people's lives and can become an addiction, then Exterminating Angels is a good, intelligent film.

For those interested in understanding the challenge of 'frontiers' in the erotic world, with a strong female perspective, this is an interesting film to watch. The male protagonist is exploring, through the making of a film, centred on screen tests and the associated conversations. The question seems to be whether eroticism is a frontier in itself or whether the excitement is in the 'pushing of these frontiers'? The females convey and at times, enjoy, their perspectives. It is very good indeed and filmed with grace.

Ian Hunter.
Author of `e-Love'.