StunnaKrypto Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

Dorathen Better Late Then Never

mraculeated The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Scarecrow-88 I think what is meant to be taken seriously as important and poetic isn't as magnetic as the women who perform in director Jean-Claude Brisseau's Les Anges Exterminateurs. To me, the interpretation I got out of the whole film is that the director wants to establish a filmmaker's pursuit of purity and authenticity on screen but through such expectations often derives problems unforeseen and unprepared. But all that remains after the film ends to me is the provocative nature of the actresses and how they embrace the parts, going the extra mile for Brisseau. I really like the lead actor in The Exterminating Angels, Frédéric van den Driessche, as a sincere director of French thrillers who desires to make an experimental film about genuine female orgasms during a number of taboo acts (masturbation in an elegant restaurant, performing lesbian lovemaking in a hotel where being caught might happen, etc.). The screen tests with a number of delectable beauties (including one young porn starlet that conceals her career so she can defy his stereotyping her) reveal open admissions to him due to his fatherly, mature presence, direct interest in their feelings and thoughts, and comfort/ease shared between them and him. Because he is the kind of man that seems to be significantly approachable, respectful, curious, unintimidating, and personable, the ladies who become mainstays during the casting process of his film confide in, adore, and, in some cases, fall in love with him. The harm when their love is unrequited as the director doesn't have the same mounting feelings of developing passion, intensifying emotion and burgeoning adoration concludes this piece of rather pretentious (the film is said to be based on an experience Brisseau had in his past) erotic melodrama. This film includes "fallen angels" with a mission concerning the director and a possible hidden agenda involving a waitress with a boyfriend who is a hood. The price of asking so much from those performing for you intimately, on camera, and in personal conversation follows the director as he finds himself badly beaten by hooded thugs. There's even a cherubic dead grandmother that visits and attempts to protect the director! I think the film is at its best when the women allow themselves to commit to their passions and desires, and the dialogue that exists about them with the director who has an ability to pull from them what innermost lies behind the veil of uninhibited living. Good scene has a former actress (Raphaële Godin) confiding in the director regarding why she quit acting and how her life changed due to the experience of one breakout role when she was only sixteen years old. I especially liked the revelations of young women who speak honestly about sex and what lies within their fantasies, and how sometimes the director is an object of pleasure to them. This film is brimming with lovely women. A highlight includes a hilarious encounter for the director during an interview where one of the actresses asks the director if he could survey her seducing technique which turns out to be an embarrassingly dire striptease. The tragic breakdown of one of his actresses does conclude that identifying too closely with a person (in this case the director), allowing so much of yourself to be naked before him/her, and expecting something the same in return can result in unfortunate consequences.

bcrumpacker 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.

jcherr 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.

rmbarge Since the legalization of hardcore pornography -- which I'll define narrowly here as filming genitals being manipulated to orgasm with the primary effect of sexually exciting the viewer -- there has been a constant tension between pornography and "legitimate" depiction of sexual conduct on camera, that is, actual sexual conduct graphically filmed, in order to make some greater philosophical or artistic point, so compelling that the message outweighs the sexual titillation.(I realize I haven't done any better a job with these definitions than anyone else. Oh well.) Whether any film will bridge the two genres successfully, or whether it's even possible, I don't know. I do know that this one fails. It comes off as porno that has been dressed up with a tissue-thin veneer of pretense to psychological or social commentary, perhaps hoping that it can be shown in art-movie theaters. I'm not going to address the apologists for this waste of celluloid. The effect of this film is depression without elucidation, a result in which only some avant-garde critics seem to find any legitimate purpose.It does manage to avoid some degree of cheesiness, but sacrifices any sort of joy or loopy humor. It's below pornography. It's the intellectualization of sexual predation. All it celebrates is the right of women to be stupid and self-destructive enough to masturbate and perform lesbian sexual acts on camera for money.